Discourses upon the existence and attributes of God

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THE PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION

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DISCOURSES

THE EXISTENCE

ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.

BY

STEPHEN CHARNOCK, B. D.

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

PHILADELPHIA:
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION.

JAMES RUSSELL, PUBLISHING AGENT.

1840.

riiii.MiKi.ni! \
wii.ium I. mmitiks. PRINTER.

CONTENTS.

VOLUME II.

DISCOURSE X.
THE POWER OF GOD.

PAGE

Lo, these are parts of his ways : but how little a portion is heard of him 1
but the thunder of his power who can understand 1 — Job. xxvi. 14. • 5

DISCOURSE XL

THEJHOLINESS OF GOD.

Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? who is like thee,
glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? — Exod. xv. 11. 126

DISCOURSE XII.

THE GOODNESS OF GOD.

And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good ? there is none
good but one, that is God. — Mark x. 18. 245

DISCOURSE XIII.

GOD'S DOMINION.

The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens ; and his kingdom
ruleth over all. — Psalm ciii. 19. 417

DISCOURSE XIV.

GOD'S PATIENCE.

The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all
acquit the wicked : the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in
the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. — Nahum i. 3. 554

ON THE

EXISTENCE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.

DISCOURSE X.

ON THE POWER OP GOD.

Job xxvi. 14. — Lo, these are parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard
of him ! but the thunder of his power who can understand?

Bildad had in the foregoing chapter entertained Job with a
discourse on the dominion and power of God, and the purity of
his righteousness, whence he argues an impossibility of the jus-
tification of man in his presence, who is no better than a worm.
Job in this chapter acknowledges the greatness of God's power,
and descants more largely upon it than Bildad had done ; but
doth preface it with a kind of ironical speech, as if he had not
acted a friendly part, or spake little to the purpose, or the mat-
ter in hand. The subject of Job's discourse was the worldly
happiness of the wicked, and the calamities of the godly; and
Bildad reads him a lecture of the extent of God's dominion,
the number of his armies, and the unspotted rectitude of his
nature, in comparison of which the purest creatures are foul
and crooked. Job, therefore, from ver. 1 to 4, taxes him in a
kind of scoffing manner, that he had not touched the point, but
rambled from the subject in hand, and had not applied a salve
proper to his sore: " How hast thou helped him that is with-
out power? How savest thou the arm of him that hath no
strength?" ver 2 ; your discourse is so impertinent, that it will
neither strengthen a weak person, nor instruct a simple one. '
But since Bildad would take up an argument of God's power,
and discourse so short of it, Job would show that he wanted
not his instructions in that kind, and that he had more distinct
conceptions of it than his antagonist had uttered : and there-
fore, from ver. 5, to the end of the chapter, he does magnifi-

i Munser.
Vol. II.— 2

(J ON THE POWER OF GOD.

cently treat of the power of God in several branches. And he
begins with the lowest, ver. 25.

" Dead things are formed from under the waters, and the in-
habitants thereof." You read me a lecture of the power of
God in the heavenly host: indeed it is visible there, yet of a
larger extent; and monuments of it are found in the lower
parts. What do you think of those dead things under the
earth and waters, of the corn that dies, and by the moistening
influences of the clouds springs up again with a numerous pro-
geny and increase for ihe nourishment of man? What do you
think of those varieties of metals and minerals conceived in the
bowels of the earth, those pearls and riches in the depths of the
waters, brought forth by this power of God? Add to these
those more prodigious creatures in the sea, the inhabitants of
the waters, with their vastness and variety, which are all the
births of God's power, both in their first creation by his mighty
voice, and their propagation by his cherishing providence.

Stop not here, but consider also that his power extends to
hell; either the graves, the repositories of all the crumbled dust
that has yet been in the world; (for so hell is sometimes taken
in Scripture; " Hell is naked before him, and destruction has
no covering," ver. 6;) the lodgings of deceased men are known
to him; no screen can obscure them from his sight, nor their
dissolution be any bar to his power, when the time is come to
compact those mouldered bodies to entertain again their de-
parted souls, either for weal or woe: or hell, the place of
punishment, is naked before him; as distinctly discerned by
hnu as a naked body in all its lineaments by us, or a dissected
body is in all its parts by a skilful eye. Destruction has no
covering: none can free himself from the power of his hand.
Every person in the bowels of hell, every person punished
there, is known to him, and feels the power of his wrath.

From the lower parts of the world he ascends to the conside-
ration of the power of God in the creation of heaven and
earth: "He stretcheth out the north over the empty place,"
ver. 7; the north or north pole over the air, which by the
Greeks was called void or empty, because of the tenuity and
thinness of that element; and he mentions here the north, or
north pole, for the whole heaven, because it is more known and
apparent than the southern pole. "And hangeth the earth
upon nothing." The massy and weighty earth hangs like a
thick globe, in the midst of a thin air, that there is as much air
on the one side of it as on the other. The heavens have no
prop to sustain them in their height, and the earth has no basis
lu support it in us place. The heavens are as if you saw a
curtain stretched smooth in the air without any hand to hold
it; and the earth is as if you saw a ball hanging in the air

ON THE POWER OF GOD. 7

without any solid body to underprop it, or any line to hinder it
from falling; both standing monuments of the omnipotence of
God.

He then takes notice of his daily power in the clouds: "He
bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not
rent under them," ver. 8. He compacts the waters together in
clouds, and keeps them by his power in the air against the
force of their natural gravity and heaviness, till they are fit to
flow down upon the earth, and perform his pleasure in the
places for which he designs them. " The cloud is not rent
under them;" the thin air is not split asunder by the weight of
the waters contained in the clouds above it. He causes them
to distil by drops, and strains them as it were through a thin
lawn, for the refreshment of the earth: and suffers them not to
fall in the whole lump, with a violent torrent, to waste the in-
dustry of man, and bring famine upon the world by destroying
the fruits of the earth. What a wonder would it be to see but
one entire drop of water hang itself but one inch above the
ground, unless it be a bubble which is preserved by the air en-
closed within it! What a wonder would it be to see a gallon
of water contained in a thin cobweb as strongly as in a vessel
of brass! Greater is the wonder of Divine power in those thin
bottles of heaven, as they are called, Job xxxviii. 37; and
therefore called his clouds here, as being daily instances of his
omnipotence. That the air should sustain those rolling vessels,
as it should seem, weightier than itself; that the force of this
mass of waters should not break so thin a prison, and hasten to
its proper place which is below the air; that they should be
daily confined against their natural inclination, and held by so
slight a chain ; that there should be such a gradual and succes-
sive falling of them, as if the air were pierced with holes like a
gardener's watering-pot, and not fall in one entire body to drown
or drench some parts of the earth; these are hourly miracles of
Divine power, as little regarded as clearly visible.

He proceeds, ver. 9. " He holdeth back the face of his
throne, and spreadeth his cloud upon it." The clouds are de-
signed as curtains to cover the heavens, as well as vessels to
water the earth, Psal. cxlvii. 8; as a tapestry curtain between
the heavens, the throne of God, and the earth, his footstool, Isa.
lxvi. 1. The heavens are called his throne, because his power
does most shine forth there, and magnificently declare the glory
of God ; and the clouds are as a screen between the scorching
heat of the sun, and the tender plants of the earth, and the
weak bodies of men.

From hence he descends to the sea, and considers the Divine
power apparent in the bounding of it: "He has compassed
the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an

8

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

end," vet. 10. This is several times mentioned in Scripture,
as a signal mark of Divine strength, Job xxxviii. 8 ; Prov. viii.
27. He has measured a place for the sea, and struck the limits
of it as with a compass, that it might not mount above the sur-
face of the land, and ruin the ends of the earth's creation; and
this while day and night have their mutual turns, till he shall
make an end of time by removing the measures of it. The
bounds of the tumultuous sea are in many places as weak as
the bottles of the upper waters; the one is contained in thin
air, and the other restrained by weak sands in many places, as
well as by stubborn rocks in others; that though it swells,
foams, roars, and the waves, encouraged and urged on by
strong winds, come like mountains against the shore, they
overflow it not, but humble themselves when they come near
to those sands, which are set as their lists and limits, and retire
back to the womb that brought them forth, as if they were
ashamed, and repented of their proud invasion: or else it may
be meant of the tides of the sea, and the stated time God has
set it for its ebbing and flowing, till night and day come to an
end.1 Both that the fluid waters should contain themselves
within due bounds, and keep their perpetual orderly motion,
are amazing arguments of Divine power.

He passes on to the consideration of the commotions in the
air and earth, raised and stilled by the power of God: " The
pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof,"
ver. 11. By pillars of heaven are not meant angels, as some
think; but either the air, called the pillars of heaven in regard
of place, as it continues and knits together the parts of the
world, as pillars do the upper and nether parts of a building.
As the lowest parts of the earth are called the foundations of
the earth; so the lowest parts of the heaven may be called the
pillars of heaven.2 Or else by that phrase may be meant moun-
tains which seem at a distance to touch the sky, as pillars do
the top of a structure; and so it may be spoken according to
vulgar capacity, which imagines the heavens to be sustained
by the two extreme parts of the earth, as a convex body, or to
be arched by pillars; whence the Scripture, according to com-
mon apprehensions, mentions the ends of the earth, and the
Utmost parts of the heavens, though they have properly no
• ■ml. as being round. The power of God is seen in those com-
motions in the air and earth, by thunders, lightnings, storms,
earthquakes, which rack the air, and make the mountains and
hills tremble as servants before a frowning and rebuking
master. °

And as he makes motions in the earth and air, so is his power
seen in their influences upon the sea. "He divideth the sea

' Coccci. in loc. i Coccei.

ON THE POWER OF GOD. g

with his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through
the proud," verse 12. At the creation he put the waters into
several channels, and caused the dry land to appear barefaced
for a habitation for man and beast; or rather he splits the sea
by storms, as though he would make the bottom of the deep
visible, and rakes up the sands to the surface of the waters,
and marshals the waves into mountains and valleys. After
that he smites through the proud, that is, humbles the proud
waves, and by allaying the storm reduces them to their former
level: the power of God is visible, as well in rebuking, as in
awakening the winds; he makes them sensible of his voice,
and according to his pleasure exasperates or calms them. The
striking through the proud here, is not properly meant of the
destruction of the Egyptian army; for some guess that Job
died that year,1 or about the time of the Israelites coming out
of Egypt: so that this discourse here being in the time of his
affliction, could not point at that which was done after his res-
toration to his temporal prosperity.

And now at last he sums up the power of God in the chiefest
of his works above, and the greatest wonder of his works be-
low: "By his Spirit hs hath garnished the heavens; his hand
hath formed the crooked serpent," verse 13. The greater and
lesser lights, sun, moon, and stars, the ornaments and furniture
of heaven; and the whale, a prodigious monument of God's
power, often mentioned in Scripture to this purpose, and in
particular in this book of Job, chap. xli. and called by the
same name of crooked serpent, Isa. xxvii. 1 ; where it is ap-
plied by way of metaphor to the king of Assyria or Egypt, or
all oppressors of the church. Various interpretations there are
of this crooked serpent: some understanding that constellation
in heaven, which astronomers call the dragon; some that com-
bination of weaker stars which they call the galaxy, which
winds about the heavens: but it is most probable that Job,
drawing near to a conclusion of his discourse, joins the two
greatest testimonies of God's power in the world, the highest
heavens and the lowest leviathan, which is here called a bar-
serpent2 in regard of his strength and hardness, as mighty men
are called bars in Scripture: her bars are broken things, Jer. li.
30. And in regard of this power of God in the creation of this
creature, it is particularly mentioned in the catalogue of God's
works; "And God created great whales," Gen. i. 21; all the
other creatures being put into one sum, and not particularly
expressed.

And now he makes the use of this lecture in the text, "Lo,
these are parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard
of him? but the thunder of his power who can understand?"

1 Drusius in loc. 2 As the word signifies in the Hebrew

jO ON THE POWER OF GOD.

This is but a small landscape of some of his works of power,
the outsides and extremities of it; more glorious things are
within Ins palaces: though those things argue a stupendous
power of the Creator in his works of creation and providence,
y.t they are nothing to what may be declared of his power.
And what may be declared, is nothing to what may be con-
ceived*; and what may be conceived, is nothing to what is
above the conceptions of any creature. These are but little
crumbs and fragments of that infinite power which is in his
nature, like a drop in comparison of the mighty ocean; a hiss
or whisper, in comparison of a mighty voice of thunder.1 This
which I have spoken is but like a spark to the fiery region, a
few lines by the by, a drop of speech.

"The thunder of his power:" some understand it of thunder
literally, for material thunder in the air: "the thunder of his
power," that is, according to the Hebrew dialect, his powerful
thunder. This is not the sense; the nature of thunder in the
air does not so much exceed the capacity of human understand-
ing; it is therefore rather to be understood metaphorically,
"The thunder of his power," that is, the greatness and im-
mensity of his power manifested in the magnificent miracles of
nature, in the consideration whereof men are astonished, as if
they had heard an unusual clap of thunder. So thunder is
used, Job xxxix. 25. "The thunder of the captains," that is,
strength and force of the captains of an army. And verse 19,
God speaking to Job of a horse, saith, " Hast thou clothed his
neck with thunder?" that is strength. And thunder being a
mark of the power of God, some of the heathen have called
God by the name of a Thunderer.2 As thunder pierces the
lowest places, and alters the state of things, so does the power
of God penetrate into all things whatsoever. " The thunder
of his power," that is, the greatness of his power; as, the
strength of his salvation, Psal. xx. 6, that is, a mighty salva-
tion.

" Who can understand?" Who is able to count all the monu-
ments of his power? How does this little, which I have spoken
of, exceed the capacity of our understanding, and is rather the
matter of our astonishment than the object of our comprehen-
sive knowledge! The power of the greatest potentate or the
mightiest creature, is but of small extent; none but have their
hunts: it may be understood how far they can act, in what
sphere their activity is bounded: but when I have spoken all
of Di vim; power that I can, when you have thought all that

1 ' tecolamp.

2 The ancient Gaols worshipped him under tlic name of Tarinis; and Thor,
winner our Thursday is derived, signifies Thunderer, a title the Germans gave
tin i. god. And Toran in the British langiKi're signifies thunder.— Voss. Idolo.
Lb. 2. cap. 33, Camd.Britan.^.17.

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

11

you can think of it, your souls will prompt you to conceive
something more beyond what I have spoken, and what you
have thought. His power shines in every thing, and is beyond
every thing. There is infinitely more power lodged in his na-
ture, not expressed to the world. The understanding of men
and angels centred in one creature, would fall short of the per-
ception of the infiniteness of it. All that can be comprehended
of it, are but little fringes of it, a small portion. No man ever
discoursed, or can, of God's power according to the magnifi-
cence of it. No creature can conceive it; God himself only
comprehends it; God himself is only able to express it. Man's
power being limited, his line is too short to measure the incom-
prehensible omnipotence of God. " The thunder of his power
who can understand?" that is, none can.

The text is a lofty declaration of the Divine power, with a
particular note of attention, Lo.

In the expressions of it in the works of creation and provi-
dence, "Lo, these are his ways;" ways and works excelling
any created strength, referring to the little summary of them he
had made before. — In the insufficiency of these ways to mea-
sure his power; "but how little a portion is heard of him?" —
In the incomprehensibleness of it; "the thunder of his power
who can understand?"

Doctrine. Infinite and incomprehensible power pertains to
the nature of God, and is expressed in part in his works: or,
Though there be a mighty expression of Divine power in his
works, yet an incomprehensible power pertains to his nature.
" The thunder of his power who can understand?"

His power glitters in all his works, as well as- his wisdom;
"Twice have I heard this, that power belongeth unto God,"
Psal. lxii. 11; in the law and in the prophets, some say: but
why power twice, and not mercy, which he speaks of in the
following verse? He had heard of power twice, from the voice
of creation, and from the voice of government. Mercy was
not heard in government after man's fall, not in creation; inno-
cent man was an object of God's goodness, not of his mercy
till he made himself miserable; power was expressed in both:
or, Twice have I heard that power belongs to God; that is, it
is a certain and undoubted truth that power is essential to the
Divine nature. It is true, mercy is essential, justice is essential;
but power more apparently essential, because no acts of mercy,
or justice, or wisdom, can be exercised by him without power.
The repetition of a thing confirms the certainty of it. Some
observe, that God is called Almighty seventy times in Scrip-
ture.1 Though his power be evident in all his works, yet he
has a power beyond the expression of it in his works, which,

1 Lcssius, de Perfect. Divin. lib. 5. cap. 1.

12

ON THE FOWER OF GOD.

as it is the glory of his nature, so it is the comfort of a believer.
To which purpose the apostle expresses it by an excellent
periphrasis for (he honour of the Divine nature. "Now unto
him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we
ask or think, — unto him be glory in the church," Eph. iii. 20,
21. We have reason to acknowledge him almighty, who has
a power of acting above our power of understanding. Who
could have imagined such a powerful operation in the propa-
gation of the gospel, and the conversion of the gentiles, which
the apostle seems to hint at in that place? His power is ex-
pressed by horns in his hands, Hab. iii. 4, because all the works
of his hands are wrought with almighty strength. Power is
also used as a name of God, Mark xiv. 62. " The Son of man
sitting on the right hand of power," that is, at the right hand
of God. God and power are so inseparable that they are re-
ciprocated. As his essence is immense, not to be confined in
place, as it is eternal, not to be measured, by time, so it is
almighty, not to be limited in regard of action.

It is ingeniously illustrated by some by a unit; ' all numbers
depend upon it, it makes numbers by addition, multiplies them
inexpressibly; when one unit is removed from a number, how
vastly does it diminish it! It gives perfection to all other
numbers, it receives perfection from none. If you add a unit
before 100, how does it multiply it to 1100! If you set a unit
before twenty millions, it presently makes the number swell up
to a hundred and twenty millions: and so powerful is a unit
by adding it to numbers, that it will infinitely enlarge them to
such a vastuess, that shall transcend the capacity of the best
arithmetician to count them. By such a meditation as this,
you may have some prospect of the power of that God who is
only unity; the beginning of all things, as a unit is the begin-
ning of all numbers; and can perform as many things really, as
a unit can numerically, that is, can do as much in the making
of creatures, as a unit can do in the multiplying of numbers.
The omnipotence of God was scarce denied by any heathen,
that did not deny the being of a God, and that was Pliny, and
that upon weak arguments.

Indeed we cannot have a conception of God, if we conceive
him not most powerful, as well as most wise: he is not a God,
that cannol do what he will, and perform all his pleasure. If
we imagine him restrained in his power, we imagine him limit-
ed in his essence. As he has an infinite knowledge to know
what is possible, he cannot be without an infinite power to do
what is possible. As he has a will to resolve what he sees
good, so he cannot want a power to effect what he sees good
to decree. As the essence of a creature cannot be conceived
' Fotherby, Athcomastic. p. 306, 307.

ON THE POWER OF GOD. |3

without that activity that belongs to his nature; (as when you
conceive lire, you cannot, conceive it without a power of burn-
ing and warming; and when you conceive water, you cannot
conceive it without a power of moistening and cleansing;) so
you cannot conceive an infinite essence without an infinite
power of activity. And therefore a heathen could say, If you
know God, you know he can do all things; and therefore says
Austin, Give me not only a Christian, but a Jew, not only a
Jew, but a heathen, that will deny God to be almighty. A
Jew, a heathen, may deny Christ to be omnipotent, but no
heathen will deny God to be omnipotent, and no devil will
deny either to be so. God cannot be conceived without some
power, for then he must be conceived without action: whose
then are those products and effects of power which are visible
to us in the world? to whom do they belong? who is the
Father of them? God cannot be conceived without a power
suitable to his nature and essence ; if we imagine him to be of
an infinite essence, we must imagine him to be of an infinite
power and strength.

In particular, I shall show,

The nature of God's power. — Reasons to prove that God
must needs be powerful. — How his power appears; in creation,
in government, in redemption. — Lastly the use.

1. What this power is, or the nature of it.

(1.) Power sometimes signifies authority; and a man is said
to be mighty and powerful in regard of his dominion, and the
right he has to command multitudes of other persons to take
his part; but power taken for strength, and power taken for
authority, are distinct things, and may be separated from one
another. Power may be without authority, as in successful
invasions that have no just foundation : authority may be with-
out power, as in a just prince expelled by an unjust rebellion;
the authority resides in him, though he be overpowered, and is
destitute of strength to support and exercise that authority.
The power of God is not to be understood of his authority and
dominion, but his strength to act, and the word in the text pro-
perly signifies strength.

(2.) This power is divided ordinarily into absolute and ordi-
nate. Absolute, is that power whereby God is able to do that
which he will not do, but is possible to be done: ordinate, is
that power whereby God does that which he has decreed to do,
that is, which he has ordained or appointed to be exercised;1
which are not distinct powers, but one and the same power;
his ordinate power is a part of his absolute; for if he had not a
power to do every thing that he could will, he might not have
a power to do every thing that he does will.

i Scaliger, Publ. exercit. 365. § 8.
Vol. II.— 3

|4 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

The object of his absolute power is all things possible; such
things thai imply not a contradiction, such that are not repug-
nant in their own nature to be done, and such as are not con-
trary to the nature and perfections of God to be done. Those
things that are repugnant in their own nature to be done are
several, as to make a thing which is past not to be' past. As
for example, the world is created; God could have chosen
whether he would create the world, and after it is created he
has power to dissolve it; but after it was created, and when it
is dissolved, it will be eternally true, that the world was crea-
ted, antLthaJUit was dissolved; for it is impossible that that
which was once true should ever be false. If it be true that
the world was created, it will for ever be true that it was
created, and cannot be otherwise. And also, if it be once true
that God has decreed, it is impossible in its own nature to be
true that God has not decreed. Some things are repugnant to
the nature and perfections of God: as it is impossible for his
nature to die and perish; impossible for him, in regard of truth,
to lie and deceive. But of this hereafter; only at present to
understand the object of God's absolute power to be things
possible, that is, possible in nature ; not by any strength in
themselves, or of themselves; for nothing has no strength, and
every thing is nothing before it comes into being. * So God by
his absolute power might have prevented the sin of the fallen
angels, and so have preserved them in their first habitation.
He might by his absolute power have restrained the devil
from tempting of Eve, or restrained her and Adam from swal-
lowing the bait, and joining hands with the temptation. By
his absolute power, God might have given the reins to Peter
to betray his Master, as well as to deny him; and employed
Judas in the same glorious and successful service wherein he
employed Paul. By his absolute power he might have created
the world millions of years before he did create it, and can re-
duce it into its empty nothing this moment. This the Baptist
affirms, when he tells us, « That God is able of these stones"
(meaning the stones in the wilderness, and not the people
which came out to him from Judea, which were children of
A.braham) "to raise up children unto Abraham," Matt. iii. 9;
that is, there is a possibility of such a thing, there is no contra-
diction in it, but that God is able to do it if he please.

Bui now the object of his ordinate power, is all things or-
dained by him to be done, all things decreed by him; and be-
cause of the Divine ordination of things this power is called
ordinate; and what is thus ordained by him he cannot but do,
because of his unchangeableness. Both those powers are ex-
pressed, Matt. xxvi. 53, 54. " My Father can send twelve

1 Estius in Sent. lib. 1. dist. 43. § 2.

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

15

legions of angels" there is his absolute power; "but how then
shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?" there is
his ordinate power. As his power is free from any act of his
will, it is called absolute; as it is joined with an act of his will,
it is called ordinate. His absolute power is necessary, and be-
longs to his nature; his ordinate power is free, and belongs to
his will; a power guided by his will ; not, as I said before, that
they are two distinct powers, both belonging to his nature, but
the latter is the same with the former, only it is guided by his
will and wisdom.

(3.) It follows then, that the power of God is that ability
and strength, whereby he can bring to pass whatsoever he
pleases; whatsoever his infinite wisdom can direct, and what-
soever the infinite purity of his will can resolve. Power, in the
primary notion of it, does not signify an act, but art ability to
bring a thing into act; it is power, as able to act before it does
actually produce a thing: as God had an ability to create be-
fore, he did create, he had power before he acted that power
Without. Power denotes the principle of the action, and there-
fore is greater than the act itself. Power exercised and dif-
fused, in bringing forth and nursing up its particular objects
without, is inconceivably less than that strength which is infi-
nite in himself, the same with his essence, and is indeed him-
self. By his power exercised he does whatsoever he actually
wills; but by the pojjrer in his nature, he is able to do whatso-
ever he is able to will. The will of creatures may be and is
more extensive than their power, and their power more con-
tracted and shortened than their will ; but, as the prophet says,
His counsel shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure, Isa.
xlvi. 10. His power is as great as his will, that is, whatsoever
can fall within the verge of his will, falls within the compass
of his power. Though he will never actually will this or that,
yet supposing he should will it, he is able to perform it: so that
you must in your notion of Divine power, enlarge it further
than to think, God can only do what he has resolved to do;
but that he has as infinite a capacity of power to act, as he has
an infinite capacity of will to resolve.

Besides, this power is of that nature that he can do whatso-
ever he pleases without difficulty, without resistance; it cannot
be checked, restrained, frustrated.1 As he can do all things
possible in regard of the object, he can do all things easily in
regard of the manner of acting. What in human artificers is
knowledge, labour, industry, that in God is his will; his will
works without labour, his works stand forth as he wills them.
Hands and arms are ascribed to him for our conceptions, be-
cause our power of acting is distinct from our will; but God's

" Cra. Syntag-. lib. 3. cap. 17. p. 611.

16

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

power of acting is not really distinct from his will: it is suffi-
cient to the existence of a thing that God wills it to exist; he
can act what he will only hy his will, without any instruments.
He needs no matter to work upon, because he can make some-
thing from nothing; all matter owes itself to his creative power:
ho needs no time to work in, for he can make time, when he
pleases to begin to work: he needs no copy to work by, him-
self is his own pattern and copy in his works. All created
agents want matter to work upon, instruments to work with,
copies to work by; time to bring either the births of their minds
or the works of their hands to perfection; but the power of
God needs none of these things, but is of a vast and incompre-
hensible nature, beyond all these. As nothing can be done
without the compass of it, so itself is without the compass of
every created understanding.

(4.) This power is of a distinct conception from the wisdom
and will of God. They are not really distinct, but according
to our conceptions. We cannot discourse of Divine things,
without observing some proportion of them with human, as-
cribing unto God the perfections, sifted from the imperfections
of our nature. In us there are three orders, of understanding,
will, power; and accordingly three acts, counsel, resolution,
execution; which though they are distinct in us, are not really
distinct in God. In our conceptions, the apprehension of a
thing belongs to the understanding of God; determination, to
the will of God; direction, to the wisdom of God; execution,
to the power of God. The knowledge of God regards a thing
as possible, and as it may be done; the wisdom of God regards
a thing as fit, and convenient to be done; the will of God re-
solves that it shall be done; the power of God is the applica-
tion of his will to effect what it has resolved. Wisdom is a
fixing the being of things, the measures and perfections of their
several beings; power is a conferring those perfections and be-
ings upon them. His power is his ability to act, and his wisdom
is the director of his action: his will orders, his wisdom guides,
and his power effects. His will as the spring, and his power
as the worker, are expressed, Psal. cxv. 3. " He hath done
whatsoever he hath pleased." "He commanded, and they
were created," Psal. cxlviii. 5: and all three expressed, Eph. i.
11. " Who worketh all things after the counsel of* his own will."
So that the power of God is a perfection (as it were) subordi-
nate to his understanding and will, to execute the results of his
wisdom and the orders of his will; to his wisdom, as directing,
because he works skilfully; to his will, as moving and apply-
ing, because he works voluntarily and freely. The exercise of
his power depends upon his will: his will is the supreme cause
of every thing that stands up in time, and all things receive a

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

17

being as he wills tliem. His power is but will perpetually
working, and diffusing itself in the season his will has fixed
from eternity; it is his eternal will in perpetual and successive
springs and streams in the creatures; it is nothing else but the
constant efficacy of his omnipotent will. This must be under-
stood of his ordinate power, but his absolute power is larger
than his resolving will; for though the Scripture tells us he has
done whatsoever he will, yet it tells us not that he has done
whatsoever he could: he can do things that he will never do.

Again, his power is distinguished from his will, in regard of
the exercise of it, which is after the act of his will: his will
was conversant about objects, when his power was not exer-
cised about them. Creatures were the objects of his will from
eternity, but they were not from eternity the effects of his
power. His purpose to create was from eternity, but the exe-
cution of his purpose was in time. Now this execution of his
will we call his ordinate power: his wisdom and his will are
supposed antecedent to his power, as the counsel and resolve,
as the cause precedes the performance of the purpose, as the
effect. Some distinguish his power from his understanding and
will, in regard that his understanding and will are larger than
his absolute power;1 for God understands sins, and wills to
permit them, but he cannot himself do any evil or unjust ac-
tion, nor have a power of doing it. But this is not to distin-
guish that Divine power, but impotence; for to be unable to
do evil is the perfection of power; and to be able to do things
unjust and evil, is a weakness, imperfection, and inability. Man
indeed wills many things that he is not able to perform, and
understands many things that he is not able to effect; he un-
derstands much of the creatures, something of sun, moon, and
stars ; he can conceive many suns, many moons, yet is not able to
create the least atom: but there is nothing that belongs to power
but God understands, and is able to effect. To sum this up,
the will of God is the root of all, the wisdom of God is the
copy of all, and the power of God is the framer of all.

(5.) The power of God gives activity to all the other perfec-
tions of his nature, and is of a larger extent and efficacy, in re-
gard to its objects, than some perfections of his nature. I put
them both together.

It contributes life and activity to all the other perfections of
his nature. How vain would be his eternal counsels, if power
did not step in to execute them! His mercy would be a feeble
pity, if he were destitute of power to relieve; and his justice a
slighted scarecrow, without power to punish; his promises an
empty sound, without power to accomplish them. As holiness
is the beauty, so power is the life of all his attributes in their

' Gamacheus.

jg ON THE POWER OF GOD.

exercise; and as holiness, so power is an adjunct belonging to
all, a term that may be given to all. God hath a powerful
wisdom to attain his ends, without interruption; he has a
powerful mercy to remove our misery; a powerful justice to
lay all misery upon offenders; he has a powerful truth to per-
form his promises, an infinite power to bestow rewards and
inflict penalties. It is to this purpose power is first put in the
two things which the psalmist had heard, " Twice have I
heard," or, two things have I heard ; first power, then mercy
and justice included in that expression, "Thou renderest to
every man according to his works," Psal. lxii. 11, 12. In every
perfection of God he heard of power. This is the arm, the
hand of the Deity, which all his other attributes lay hold on,
when they would appear in their glory; this hands them to the
world; by this they act, in this they triumph. Power Jramed
every stage for their appearance in creation, providence, re-
demption.

It is of a larger extent in regard of its objects, than some
other attributes. Power does not always suppose an object,
but constitutes an object. It supposes an object in the act of
preservation, but it makes an object in the act of creation; but
mercy supposes an object miserable, yet does not. make it so.
Justice supposes an object criminal, but does not "constitute it
so: mercy supposes him miserable, to relieve him; justice
supposes him criminal, to punish him: but power supposes
not a thing in real existence, but as possible; or rather,- it is
from power that any thing has a possibility, if there be no re-
pugnancy in the nature of the thing.

Again, power extends further than either mercy or justice.
Mercy has particular objects, which justice shall not at- last be
willing to punish ; and justice has particular objects, which
mercy at last shall not be willing to refresh; but power does,
and always will extend to the objects of both mercy and jus-
tice. A creature, as a creature, is neither the object of mercy
nor .justice, nor of rewarding goodness: a creature, as innocent,
is the object of rewarding goodness; a creature, as miserable, is
the object of compassionate mercy; a creature, as criminal, is
the object of revenging justice; but all of them the objects of
power, in conjunction with those attributes of goodness, mercy,
and justice, to which they belong. All the objects that mercy,
and justice, and truth, and wisdom, exercise themselves about,
have a possibility and an actual being from this perfection of
Divine power. It is power first frames a creature in a capa-
city of nature for mercy or justice, though it does not give an
immediate qualification for the exercise of either. Power makes
man a rational creature, and so confers upon him a nature mu-
table, which may be miserable by its own fault, and punish-

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

19

able by God's justice; or pitiable by God's compassion, and
relievable by God's mercy ; but it does not make him sinful,
whereby he becomes miserable and punishable.

Again, power runs through all the decrees of the states of a
creature. As a thing is possible, or may be made, it is the
object of absolute power; as it is factibile, or ordered to be
made, it is the object of ordinate power; as a thing is actually
made, and brought into being, it is the object of preserving
power. So that power does stretch out its arms to all the
works of God, in all their circumstances, and at all times.
When mercy ceases to relieve a creature, when justice ceases
to punish a creature, power ceases not to preserve a creature.
The blessed in heaven, that are out of the reach of punishing
justice, are for ever maintained by power in that blessed con-
dition: the damned in hell, that are cast out of the bosom of
entreating mercy, are for ever sustained in those remediless
torments by the arm of power.

(6.) This power is originally and essentially in the nature of
God, and not distinct from his essence. It is originally and
essentially in God. The strength and power of great kings is
originally in their people, and managed and ordered by the
authority of the prince for the common good. Though a prince
has authority in his person to command, yet he has not suffi-
cient strength in his person, without the assistance of others, to
make his commands to be obeyed. He has not a single strength
in his own person to conquer countries and kingdoms, and in-
crease the number of his subjects: he must make use of the
arms of his own subjects, to overrun other places, and yoke
them under his dominion: but the power of all things that ever
were, are, or shall be, is originally and essentially in God. It
is not derived from any thing without him, as the power of the
greatest potentates in the world is: therefore it is said, " Power
belongeth unto God," Psal. lxii. 11, that is, solely, and to none
else. He has a power to make his subjects, and as many as he
pleases; to create worlds, to enjoin precepts, to execute penal-
ties, without calling in the strength of his creatures to his aid.
The strength that the subjects of a mortal prince have, is not
derived to them from the prince, though the exercise of it for
this or that end, is ordered and directed by the authority of the
prince : but what strength soever any thing has to act as a
means, it has from the power of God as Creator, as well as
whatsoever authority it has to act is from God, as a Rector and
Governor of the world. God has a strength to act without
means, and no means can act any thing without his power and
strength communicated to them. As the clouds, in the Sth
verse before the text, are called God's clouds, his clouds; so
all the strength of creatures may be called, and truly is, God's

j2() ON THE POWER OF GOD.

strength and power in them; a drop of power shot down from
heaven, originally only in God. Creatures have but a little
mite of power; somewhat communicated to them, somewhat
kept and reserved from them, of what they are capable to pos-
sess. They have limited natures, and therefore a limited sphere
of activity. Clothes can warm us, but not feed us; bread can
nourish us, but not clothe us; one plant has a medicinal quality
against one disease, another against another; but God is the
possessor of universal power, the common exchequer of this
mighty treasure. He acts by creatures, as not needing their
power, but deriving power to them: what he acts by them, he
could act himself without them; and what they act as from
themselves, is derived to them from him through invisible chan-
nels. And hence it will follow, that because power is essen-
tially in God, more operations of God are possible than are
exerted.

And as power is essentially in God, so it is not distinct from
his essence. It belongs to God in regard of the inconceivable
excellency and activity of his essence.1 And omnipotence is
nothing but the Divine essence efficacious ad extra, or " with-
out." It is his essence as operative, and the immediate prin-
ciple of operation: as the power of enlightening in the sun,
and the power of heating in the fire, are not things distinct
from the nature of them; but the nature of the sun bringing
forth light, and the nature of the fire bringing forth heat. The
power of acting is the same with the substance of God, though
the action from that power be terminated in the creature. If
the power of God were distinct from his essence, he were then
compounded of substance and power, and would not be the
most simple Being. As when the understanding is informed
in several parts of knowledge: it is skilled in the government
of cities and countries, it knows this or that art ; it learns mathe-
matics, philosophy, this or that science. The understanding
has a power to do this; but this power, whereby it learns those
excellent things, and brings forth excellent births, is not a thing
distinct from the understanding itself: we may rather call it the
understanding powerful, than the power of the understanding;
and so we may rather say, God powerful, than say, the power
of God, because his power is not distinct from his essence.

From both these it will follow, that this omnipotence is in-
communicable to any creature; no creature can inherit it, be-
cause it is a contradiction for any creature to have the essence
of God. This omnipotence is a peculiar right of God, wherein
no creature can share with him. To be omnipotent, is to be
essentially God. And for a creature to be omnipotent, is for
a creature to be its own creator. It being therefore the same

1 Rationc summtu actualitatis essentia?. Suarez. vol. 1. p. 150, 151.

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

21

with the essence of the Godhead, it cannot be communicated
to the humanity of Christ, as the Lutherans say it is, without
the communication of the essence of the Godhead; for then
the humanity of Christ would not be humanity, but Deity. If
omnipotence were communicated to the humanity of Christ,
the essence of God were also communicated to his humanity,
and then eternity would be communicated. His humanity
then was not given him in time, his humanity would be un-
compounded, that is, his body would be no body, his soul no
soul. Omnipotence is essentially in God ; it is not distinct
from the essence of God, it is his essence, omnipotent, able to
do all things.

(7.) Hence it follows, that this power is infinite ; " What is
the exceeding greatness of his power — according to the work-
ing of his mighty power," Eph. i. 19. God were not omnipo-
tent, unless liis power were infinite; for a finite power is a
limited power, and a limited power cannot effect every thing
that is possible. Nothing can be too difficult for the Divine
power to effect: he has a fulness of power, and exceeding
strength, above all human capacities; it is a mighty power,
Eph. i. 19 ; able to do above all that we can ask or think, Eph.
iii. 20; that which he acts, is above the power of any creature
to act. Infinite power consists in the bringing things forth
from nothing. No creature can imitate God in this prerogative
of power. Man indeed can carve various forms, and erect
various pieces of art; but from pre-existent matter. Every
artificer has the matter brought to his hand, he only brings it
forth in a new figure. Chemists separate one thing from an-
other, but create nothing, but sever those things which were
before compacted and blended together. But when God speaks
a powerful word, nothing begins to be something ; things stand
forth from the womb of nothing, and obey his mighty com-
mand, and take what forms he is pleased to give them. The
creating one thing, though never so small and minute, as the
least fly, cannot be but by an infinite power; much less can
the producing of such variety we see in the world. His power
is infinite, in regard it cannot be resisted by any thing that he
has made ; nor can it be confined by any thing he can will to
make. " His greatness is unsearchable," Psal. cxlv. 3. It is
a greatness, not of quantity, but quality. The greatness of his
power has no end ; it is a vanity to imagine any limits can be
affixed to it, or that any creature can say, Hitherto it can go,
and no further. It is above all conception, all inquisition of
any created understanding. No creature ever had, nor ever
can have that strength of wit and understanding, to conceive
the extent of his power, and how magnificently he can work.

[1.] His essence is infinite. As in a finite subject there is a
Vol. II.— 4

22

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

finite virtue, so in an infinite subject there must be an infinite
virtue. Where the essence is limited, the power is so; ' where
the essence is unlimited, the power knows no bounds. 2 Among
creatures, the more excellency of being and form any thing
has, the more activity, vigour, and power it has, to work
according to its nature. The sun has a mighty power to warm,
enlighten, and fructify, above what the stars have; because it
has a vaster body, more intense degrees of light, heat, and
vigour. Now, if you conceive the sun made much greater than
it is, it would proportionably have greater degrees of power to
heat and enlighten than it has now; and were it possible to
have an infinite heat and light, it would infinitely heat and en-
lighten other things; for every thing is able to act according to
the measures of its being. Therefore, since the essence of God
is unquestionably infinite, his power of acting must be so also.
His power (as was said before) is one and the same with his
essence: and though the knowledge of God extends to more
objects than his power, because he knows all evils of sin, which
because of his holiness he cannot commit; yet it is as infinite
as his knowledge, because it is as much one with his essence
as his knowledge and wisdom are; for as the wisdom or know-
ledge of God are nothing but the essence of God, knowing; so
the power of God is nothing but the essence of God, able.

[2.] The objects of Divine power are innumerable. The
objects of Divine power are not essentially infinite; and there-
fore we must not measure the infiniteness of Divine power by
an ability to make an infinite being ; because there is an inca-
pacity in any created thing to be infinite; for to be a creature
and to be infinite, to be infinite and yet made, is a contradic-
tion. To be infinite, and to be God, is one and the same thing.
Nothing can be infinite but God; nothing but God is infinite.
But the power of God is infinite, because it can produce infi-
nite effects, or innumerable things, such as surpass the arith-
metic of a creature: nor yet does the infiniteness consist simply
in producing innumerable effects; for that a finite cause can
produce. Fire can by its finite and limited heat, burn number-
less combustible things and parcels; and the understanding of
man has an infinite number of thoughts and acts of intellection,
and thoughts different from another. Who can number the
imaginations of his fancy, and thoughts of his mind, the space
ot one month or year? much less of forty or a hundred years;
yet all these thoughts are about things that are in being, or
have a foundation in things that are in being. But the infi-
niteness of God's power consists in an ability to produce infi-
nite effects, formally distinct, and diverse from one another;
such as never had being, such as the mind of man cannot con
1 Operations Bequuatur essentiam. 2 Aquin. par. 1. q. 25. a. 2.

ON THE POWER OF GOD. 23

ceive; able lo do above what he can think, Eph. iii. 20. And
whatsoever God has made, or is able to make, he is able to
make in an infinite manner, by calling them to stand forth from
nothing. To produce innumerable effects of distinct natures,
and from so distant a term as nothing, is an argument of infi-
nite power.

Now, that the objects of Divine power are innumerable ap-
pears, because God can do infinitely, more than he has done,
or will do. Nothing that God has done can enfeeble or dull
his power; there still resides in him an ability beyond all the
settled contrivances of his understanding, and resolves of his
will, which no effects which he has Wrought can drain and
put to a stand. As he can raise stones to be children to Abra-
ham, Matt. iii. 9; so with the same mighty word whereby he
made one world, he can make infinite numbers of worlds, to
be the monuments of his glory. After the prophet Jeremy,
ch. xxxii. 17, had spoken of God's power in creation, he adds,
" And there is nothing too hard for thee." For one world that
he has made, he can create millions; for one star which he
hath beautified the heavens with, he could have garnished it
with a thousand, and multiplied, if he had pleased, every one
of those into millions; for he can call things that are not, Rom.
iv. 17; not some things, but all things possible. The barren
womb of Nothing can no more resist his power now to educe
a world from it, than it could at first: no doubt but for one
angel which he hath made, he could make many worlds of an-
gels. He that made one with so much ease, as by a word, can-
not want power to make many more, till he wants a word.
The word that was not too weak to make one, cannot be too
weak to make multitudes. If from one man he has, in a way
of nature, multiplied so many in all ages of the world, and
covered with them the whole face of the earth; he could in a
supernatural way, by one word multiply as many more. It is
the breath of the Almighty that gives life, Job xxxiii. 4. He
can create infinite species and kinds of creatures more than he
has created, more variety of forms; for since there is no search-
ing of his greatness, there is no conceiving the numberless pos-
sible effects of his power. The understanding of man can con-
ceive numberless things possible to be, more than have been or
shall be. And shall we imagine, that a finite understanding of
a creature hath a greater omnipotence to conceive things possi-
ble, than God has to produce things possible? When the un-
derstanding of man is tired in its conceptions, it must still be
concluded, that the power of God extends, not only to what
can be conceived, but infinitely beyond the measures of a finite
faculty: "Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out: he
is excellent in power, and in judgment," Job xxxvii. 23. For

24 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

the understanding of man, in its conceptions of more kinds of
creatures, is limited to those creatures which are : it cannot, in
its own imagination, conceive any thing but what has some
foundation in and from something already in being. It may
frame a new kind of creature, made up of a lion, a horse, an
ox; but all those parts whereof its conception is made, have
distinct beings in the world, though not in that composition as
his mind mixes and joins them: but no question but God can
create creatures that have no resemblance with any kind of
creatures yet in being. It is certain, that if God only knows
those things which he has done, and will do, and not all things
possible to be done by him, his knowledge were finite; so if he
could do no more than what he has done,' his power would be
finite.

Creatures have a power to act about more objects than they
do. The understanding of man can frame from one principle
of truth many conclusions and inferences more than it does.
Why cannot then the power of God frame from one first mat-
ter, an infinite number of creatures more than have been
created? The almightiness of God in producing real effects, is
not inferior to the understanding of man in drawing out real
truths. An artificer that makes a watch, supposing his life and
health, can make many more of a different form and motion ;
and a limner can draw many draughts, and frame many pic-
tures with a new variety of colours, according to the richness
of his fancy. If these can do so, that require a pre-existent
matter framed to their hands, God can much more, who can
raise beautiful structures from nothing. As long as men have
matter, they can diversify the matter, and make new figures
from it: so long as there is nothing, God can produce out of
that nothing, whatsoever he pleases.

We see the same in inanimate creatures. A spark of fire
has a vast power in it; it will kindle other things, increase and
enlarge itself. Nothing can be exempt from the active force of
it. It will alter by consuming or refining whatsoever you offer
to it. It will reach all, and refuse none ; and by the efficacious
power of it, all those new figures which we see in metals are
brought forth. When you have exposed it to a multitude of
things, still add more, it will exert the "same strength; yea, the
vigour is increased rather than diminished. The more it catches
the more fiercely and irresistibly it will act; you cannot sup-
pose an end of its operation, or a decrease of its strength, as
long as you can conceive its duration and continuance: this
must be but a weak shadow of that infinite power which is in
God. Take another instance in the sun; it has power every
year to produce flowers and plants from the earth; and is as
able to produce them now, as it was at the first lighting it, and

ON THE POWER OF GOD. 25

rearing it in the sphere wherein it moves. And if there were
no kind of flowers and plants now created, the sun has a power
residing in it, ever since its first creation, to afford the same
warmth to them for the nourishing and bringing them forth.
Whatsoever you can conceive the sun to be able to do in re-
gard of plants, that can God do in regard of worlds; produce
more worlds than the sun does plants every year, without wea-
riness, without languish meat. The sun is able to influence more
things than it does, and produce numberless effects; but it does
not do so much as it is able to do, because it wants matter to
work upon: God therefore who wants no matter, can do much
more than he does; he can either act by second causes if there
were more, or make more second causes if he pleased.

God is the most free agent. Every free agent can do more
than he will do. Man being a free creature, can do more than
ordinarily he does will to do. God is most free, as being the
spring of liberty in other creatures. He acts not by a neces-
sity of nature, as the waves of the sea, or the motions of the
wind; and therefore is not determined to those things which he
has already called forth into the world. If God be infinitely
wise in contrivance, he could contrive more than he has, and
therefore can effect more than he has effected. He does not
act to the extent of his power upon all occasions. It is accord-
ing to his will that he works, Eph. i. 11. It is not according
to his work that he wills; his work is an evidence of his will,
but not the rule of his will. His power is not the rule of his
will, but his will is the disposer of his power, according to the
light of his infinite wisdom, and other attributes that direct his
will; and therefore his power is not to be measured by his ac-
tual will. No doubt but he could in a moment have produced
that world which he took six days' time to frame: he could
have drowned the old world at once, without prolonging the
time till the revolution of forty days; he was not limited to such
a term of time by any weakness, but by the determination of
his own will. God does not do the hundred thousandth part of
what he is able to do, but what is convenient to do, according
to the end which he has proposed to himself. Jesus Christ, as
man, could have asked legions of angels: and God, as a Sove-
reign, could have sent them, Matt. xxvi. 53. God could raise
the dead every day if he pleased, but he does not; he could
heal every diseased person in a moment, but he does not. As
God can will more than he does actually will, so he can do
more than he has actually done ; he can do whatsoever he can
will; he can will more worlds, and therefore can create more
worlds. If God has not ability to do more than he will do, he
then can do no more than what he actually has done; and then

2(3 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

it will follow, that he is not a free, but a natural and necessary
agent, which cannot he supposed of God.

[3.] This power is infinite in regard of action. As he can
produce numberless objects above what he has produced, so
he could produce them more magnificently than he has made
them. As he never works to the extent of his power in regard
of things, so neither in regard of the manner of acting; for he
never acts so, but he could act in a higher and more perfect
manner.

His power is infinite in regard of the independency of action;
he wants no instrument to act. When there was nothing but
God, there was no cause of action but God: when there was
nothing in being but God, there could be no instrumental cause
of the being of any thing. God can perfect his action without
dependence on anything;1 and to be simply independent, is
to be simply infinite. In this respect it is a power incommuni-
cable to any creature, though you conceive a creature in higher
degrees of perfection than it is. A creature cannot cease to be
dependent, but it must cease to be a creature; to be a creature
and independent, are terms repugnant to one another.

But the infiniteness of Divine power consists in an ability to
give higher degrees of perfection to every thing which he has
made. As his power is infinite extensive, in regard of the multi-
tude of objects he can bring into being; so it is infinite intensive,
in regard of the manner of operation, and the endowments he
can bestow upon them.2 Some things indeed God does so per-
fectly, that higher degrees of perfection cannot be imagined to
be added to them.3 As the humanity of Christ cannot be united
more gloriously than to the person of the Son of God; a greater
degree of perfection cannot be conferred upon it. Nor can the
souls of the blessed have a nobler object of vision and fruition
than God himself, the infinite Being: no higher than the
enjoyment of himself can be conferred upon a creature, re-
spectu termini, "with respect to his end." This is not want
of power: he cannot be greater because he is greatest, nor
better because he is the best; nothing can be more than infi-
nite. But as to the things which God has made in the world,
he could have given them other manner of beings than they
have. A human understanding may improve a thought or
conclusion, strengthen it with more and more force of reason,
ami adorn it with richer and richer elegancy of language ; why
then may not the Divine Providence produce a world more
perfect and excellent than this? He that makes a plain vessel
can embellish it more, engrave more figures upon it, according
to the capacity of the subject ; and cannot God do so much

' Suarez dc Deo. vol. 1. p. 151.

* Becan. Sum. Thcol. p. 82. 3 ibid. p. 84.

ON THE POWER OF GOD. 27

more with his works? Could not God have made this world of
a larger quantity, and the sun of a greater bulk and propor-
tionable strength to influence a bigger world? so that this
world would have been to another that God might have made,
as a ball or a mount, this sun as a star to another sun that he
might have kindled. He could have made every star a sun,
every spire of grass a star, every grain of dust a flower, every
soul an angel. And though the angels be perfect creatures,
and inexpressibly more glorious than a visible creature; yet
who can imagine God so confined, that he cannot create a more
excellent kind, and endow those which he has made with ex-
cellency of a higher rank than he invested them with at the first
moment of their creation ? Without question, God might have
given the meaner creatures more excellent endowments, put
them into another order of nature for their own good, and
more diffusive usefulness in the world. What is made use of
by the prophet, Mai. ii. 15, in another case, may be used in
this, " Yet had he the residue of the Spirit." The capacity of
every creature might have been enlarged by God; for no work
of his in the world does equal his power, as nothing that he has
framed does equal his wisdom. The same matter which is the
matter of the body of a beast, is the matter of a plant and
flower; is the matter of the body of a man; and so was capa-
ble of a higher form and higher perfections, than God has been
pleased to bestow upon it. And he had power to bestow that
perfection on one part of matter which he denied to it, and be-
stowed on another part. If God cannot make things in a
greater perfection, there must be some limitation of him; he
cannot be limited by another, because nothing is superior to
God. If limited by himself, that limitation is not from a want
of power, but a want of will. He can by his own power raise
stones to be children to Abraham, Matt. iii. 9 : he could alter
the nature of the stones, form them into human bodies, dignify
them with rational souls, inspire those souls with such graces
that may render them the children of Abraham. But for the
more fully understanding the nature of this power, we may
observe,

That though God can make everything with a higher degree
of perfection, yet still within the limits of a finite being. No
creature can be made infinite, because no creature can be made
God. No creature can be so improved, as to equal the good-
ness and perfection of God;1 yet there is no creature, but we
may conceive a possibility of its being made more perfect in
that rank of a creature than it is: as we may imagine a flower
or plant to have greater beauty and richer qualities imparted
to it by Divine power, without rearing it so high as to the

1 Gamach. in Aquin. torn. 1 qu. 25.

28

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

dignity of a rational or sensitive creature. Whatsoever per-
fections may be added by God to a creature, are still finite per-
fections; and a multitude of finite excellencies can never
amount to the value and honour of infinite: as, if you add one
number to another as high as you can, as much as a large piece
of paper can contain, you can never make the numbers really
infinite, though they may be infinite in regard of the inability
of any human understanding to count them. The finite con-
dition of the creature suffers it not to be capable of an infinite
perfection. God is so great, so excellent, that it is his perfec-
tion not to have any equal; the defect is in the creature, which
cannot be elevated to such a pitch; as you can never make a
gallon measure hold the quantity of a butt, or a butt the quan-
tity of a river, or a river the fulness of the sea.

Though God has a power to furnish every creature with
greater and nobler perfections than he has bestowed upon it,
yet he has framed all things in the most perfect manner, and
most convenient to that end for which he intended them.
Every thing is endowed with the best nature and quality suit-
able to God's end in creation, though not in the best manner
for itself. ' In regard of the universal end, there cannot be a
better; for God himself is the end of all things, who is the
Supreme Goodness. Nothing can be better than God, who
could not be God if he were not superlatively best, or opti-
mum; and he hath ordered all things for the declaration of his
goodness or justice, according to the behaviour of his creatures.
Man does not consider what strength or power he can put
forth in the means he uses to attain such an end, but the suit-
ableness of them to his main design, and so fits and marshals
them to his grand purpose. Had God only created things that
are most excellent, he had created only angels and men ; how
then would his wisdom have been conspicuous in other works
in the subordination and subserviency of them to one another?
God therefore determined his power by his wisdom:2 and
though his absolute power could have made every creature
better, yet his ordinate power, which in every step was regu-
lated by his wisdom, made every thing best for his designed
intention. A musician has a power to wind up a string on a
lute to a higher and more perfect note in itself, but in wisdom
he will not do it, because the intended melody should be dis-
turbed thereby, if it were not suited to the other strings on the
instrument; a discord would mar and taint the harmony which
the lutenist designed. God in creation observed the propor-
tions of nature. He can make a spider as strong as a lion; but
according to the order of nature he has settled, it is not con-

1 Best "ex parte facientis et modi," but not "ex parte rei." — Esti. in Senten.
lib. 1. distin. 44. §2. 2 Aquin. part. 1. qu. 25. artic.

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

29

venient that a creature of so small a compass, should be as
strong as one of a greater bulk. The absolute power of God
could have prepared a body for Christ as glorious as that he
had after his resurrection: but that had not been agreeable to
the end designed in his humiliation: and therefore God acted
most perfectly by his ordinate power, in giving him a body
that wore the livery of our infirmities. God's power is always
regulated by his wisdom and will ; and though it produces not
what is most perfect in itself, yet what is most perfect and de-
cent in relation to the end he fixed. And so in his providence,
though he could rack the whole frame of nature to bring about
his ends in a more miraculous way and astonishment to mor-
tals; yet his power is usually and ordinarily confined by his
will to act in concurrence with the nature of the creatures, and
direct them according to the laws of their being, to such ends
which he aims at in their conduct, without doing violence to
their nature.

Though God has an absolute power to make more worlds,
and infinite numbers of other creatures, and to render every
creature a higher mark of his power, yet in regard of his de-
cree to the contrary, he cannot do it. He hath a physical
power, but after his resolve to the contrary, not a moral power:
the exercise of his power is subordinate to his decree, but not
the essence of his power. 1 The decree of God takes not away
any power from God, because the power of God is his own
essence, and incapable of change; and is as great physically
and essentially after his decree as it was before; only his will
has put in a bar to the demonstration of all that power which
he is able to exercise. As a prince that can raise a hundred
thousand men for an invasion, raises only twenty or thirty
thousand; he here, by his order limits his power, but does not
divest himself of his authority and power to raise the whole
number of the forces of his dominions if he pleases. The power
of God has more objects than his decree has; but since it is his
perfection to be immutable, and not to change his decree, he
cannot morally put forth his power upon all those objects,
which as it is essentially in him, he has ability to do.2 God
has decreed to save those that believe in Christ, and to judge
unbelievers to everlasting perdition: he cannot morally damn
the former, or save the latter; yet he has not divested himself
of his absolute power to save all, or damn all. Or suppose
God has decreed not to create more worlds than this we are
now in, does his decree weaken his strength to create more if
he pleased: his not creating more is not a want of strength, but
a want of will. It is an act of liberty, not an act of impotency.
As when a man solemnly resolves not to walk in such a way,

1 Gamach. in Aquin. torn. 1. quest. 25. 2 Crell. de Deo, cap. 22.

Vol. II.— 5

30

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

or come at such a place, his resolution deprives him not of his
natural strength to walk thither; but fortifies his will against
using his strength in any such motion to that place. The will
of God has set bounds to the exercise of his power, but does
not infringe that absolute power which still resides in his na-
ture: he is girded with more power than he puts forth, Psal.
lxv. 6.

[4.] As the power of God is infinite, in regard of his essence,
in regard of the objects, in regard of action, so fourthly, in re-
gard of duration. The apostle calls it an eternal power, Rom.
i. 20. His eternal power is collected and concluded from the
things that are made. They must needs be the product of some
Being which contains truly in itself all power, who wrought
them without engines, without instruments; and therefore this
power must be infinite, and possessed of an unalterable virtue
of acting. If it be eternal, it must be infinite, and has neither
beginning nor end; what is eternal has no bounds. If it be eter-
nal, and not limited by time, it must be infinite, and not to be
restrained by any finite object. His power never begun to be,
nor ever ceases to be, it cannot languish: men are fain to un-
bend themselves, and must have some time to recruit their tired
spirits; but the power of God is perpetually vigorous, without
any interrupting qualm. " Hast thou not known ? hast thou not
heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the
ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?" Isa. xl. 28.
That might which suffered no diminution from eternity, but
hatched so great a world by brooding upon nothing, will not
suffer any dimness or decrease to eternity. This power being
the same with his essence, is as durable as his essence, and re-
sides for ever in his nature.

(8.) The eighth consideration, for the right understanding of
this attribute, is, the impossibility of God's doing some things is
no infringing of his almightiness, but rather a strengthening of
it. It is granted that some things God cannot do; or rather, as
Aquinas and others, it is better to say, such things cannot be
done, than to say that God cannot do them; to remove all kind
of imputation or reflection of weakness on God, ' and because the
reason of the impossibility of those things is in the nature of the
things themselves.

[1.] First, some things are impossible in their own nature.
Such are all those things which imply a contradiction; as for a
thing to be and not to be at the same time; for the sun to shine
and not to shine at the same moment of time; for a creature to
act and not to act at the same instant. One of those parts must
be false; for if it be true that the sun shines this moment, it
must be false to say it does not shine. So it is impossible that

1 Robins. Observat. p. 11.

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

31

a rational creature can be without reason: it is a contradiction
to be a rational creature, and yet want that which is essen-
tial to a rational creature. So it is impossible that the will
of man can be compelled, because liberty is the essence of the
will; while it is will it cannot be constrained; and if it be con-
strained it ceases to be will. ' God cannot at one time act as
the author of the will and the destroyer of the will. It is im-
possible that vice and virtue, light and darkness, life and death
should be the same thing. Those things admit not of a concep-
tion in any understanding. Some things are impossible to be
done, because of the incapability of the subject; as for a crea-
ture to be made infinite, independent, to preserve itself without
the Divine concourse and assistance. So a brute cannot be
taken into communion with God, and to everlasting spiritual
blessedness, because the nature of a brute is incapable of such
an elevation: a rational creature only can understand and relish
spiritual delights, and is capable to enjoy God and have com-
munion with him. Indeed God may change the nature of a
brute, and bestow such faculties of understanding and will upon
it, as to render it capable of such a blessedness; but then it is no
more a brute, but a rational creature; but while it remains a
brute, the excellency of the nature of God does not admit of
communion with such a subject. So that this is not for want
of power in God, but because of a deficiency in the creature.
To suppose that God could make a contradiction true, is to make
himself false, and to do just nothing.

[2.] Some things are impossible to the nature and being of
God. As to die, implies a flat repugnance to the nature of
God: to be able to die, is to be able to be cashiered out of being.
If God were able to deprive himself of life, he might then cease
to be: he were not then a necessary, but an uncertain contin-
gent being, and could not be said only to have immortality, as
he is, 1 Tim. vi. 16. He cannot die who is life itself, and ne-
cessarily existent: he cannot grow old or decay, because he can-
not be measured by time. And this is no part of weakness, but
the perfection of power. His power is that whereby he remains
for ever fixed in his own everlasting being; that cannot be reck-
oned as necessary to the omnipotence of God, which all man-
kind count a part of weakness in themselves. God is omnipotent
because he is not impotent; and if he could die, he would be im-
potent, not omnipotent: death is the feebleness of nature. It is
undoubtedly the greatest impotence to cease to be: who would
count it a partof omnipotency to disenable himself, and sink into
nothing and not being? The impossibility for God to die, is not a
fit article to impeach his omnipotence: this would be a strange
way of arguing, a thing is not powerful because it is not feeble,

1 Magalano de Scientia Dei, part. 2. c. 6. § 3.

32 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

and cannot cease to be powerful ; for death is a cessation of all
power. God is almighty in doing what he will, not in suffering
what he will not. ' To die is not an active, but a passive pow-
er; a defect of a power: God is of too noble a nature to perish.

Some things are impossible to that eminency of nature which
he has above all creatures; as to walk, sleep, feed, these are
imperfections belonging to bodies and compounded natures.
If he could walk, he were not every where present: motion
speaks succession. If he could increase, he would not have
been perfect before.

[3.] Some things are impossible to the glorious perfections
of God. God cannot do any thing unbecoming his holiness
and goodness: any thing unworthy of himself, and against the
perfections of his nature. God can do whatsoever he can will.
As he does actually do whatsoever he does actually will; so it
is possible for him to do whatsoever it is possible for him to
will. He does whatsoever he will, and can do whatsoever he
can will; but he cannot do what he cannot will. He cannot
will any unrighteous thing, and therefore cannot do any un-
righteous thing. God cannot love sin, this is contrary to his
holiness; he cannot violate his word, this is a denial of his
truth; he cannot punish an innocent, this is contrary to his
goodness; he cannot cherish an impenitent sinner, this is an
injury to his justice; he cannot forget what is done in the
world this is a disgrace to his omniscience; he cannot deceive
his creature, this is contrary to his faithfulness. None of these
things can be done by him, because of the perfection of his
nature. Would it not be an imperfection in God to absolve
the guilty and condemn the innocent? Is it congruous to the
righteous and holy nature of God to command murder and
adultery; to command men not to worship him, but to be base
and unthankful? These things would be against the rules of
righteousness. As when we say of a good man, he cannot rob
or fight a duel; we do not mean that he wants a courage for
such an act, or that he has not a natural strength and know-
ledge to manage his weapon as well as another; but he has a
righteous principle strong in him which will not suffer him to
do it; his will is settled against it: no power can pass into act
unless applied by the will. But the will of God cannot will
any thing but what is worthy of him, and decent for his goodness.
The Scripture says, it is impossible for God to lie, Heb. vi.
18; and God cannot deny himself because of his faithfulness,
2 Tim. ii. 13. As he cannot die, because he is life itself; as
he cannot deceive, because he is goodness itself; as he cannot
do an unwise action, because he is wisdom itself; so he cannot
speak a false word, because he is truth itself. If he should

1 August

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

33

speak any thing as true, and not know it, where is his infinite
knowledge and comprehensiveness of understanding? If he
should speak any thing as true, which he knows to be false,
where is his infinite righteousness? If he should deceive any
creature, there is an end of his perfection and fidelity and
veracity. If he should be deceived himself, there is an end of
his omniscience; we must then fancy him to be a deceitful
God, an ignorant God, that is, no God at all. If he should lie,
he would be God and no God; God upon supposition, and no
God, because not the first truth.1 All unrighteousness is weak-
ness, not power; it is a defection from right reason, a deviation
from moral principles and the rule of perfect action, and arises
from a defect of goodness and power: it is a weakness, and
not omnipotence, to lose goodness.2 God is light; it is the
perfection of light not to become darkness, and a want of power
in light if it should become darkness. His power is infinitely
strong, so is his wisdom infinitely clear, and his will infinitely
pure. Would it not be a part of weakness to have a disorder
in himself, and these perfections shock one against another?
Since all perfections are in God in the most sovereign height of
perfection, nothing can be done by the infiniteness of one
against the infiniteness of the other. He would then be unsta-
ble in his own perfections, and depart from the infinite recti-
tude of his own will, if he should do an evil action. Again,
what is an argument of greater strength, than to be utterly
ignorant of infirmity?3 God is omnipotent because he cannot
do evil, and would not be omnipotent if he could; those things
would be marks of weakness, and not characters of majesty.
Would you count a sweet fountain impotent, because it cannot
send forth bitter streams? or the sun weak, because it cannot
diffuse darkness as well as light in the air? There is an inabil-
ity arising from weakness, and an inability arising from per-
fection. It is the perfection of angels and blessed spirits, that
they cannot sin; and it would be the imperfection of God, if he
could do evil.

Hence it follows, that it is impossible that a thing past should
not be past. If we ascribe a power to God, to make a thing
that is past not to be past, we do not truly ascribe power to
him, but a weakness. For it is to make God to lie. As though
God might not have created man, yet after he had created
Adam, though he should presently have reduced Adam to his
first nothing, yet it would be for ever true that Adam was cre-
ated, and it would for ever be false that Adam never was cre-
ated : so though God may prevent sin, yet when sin has been
committed, it will always be true that sin was committed: it
will never be true to say such a creature that did sin, did not

1 Becan. Sum. Theolog. p. 83. J Maximus Tyrius. 3 Ambrose.

34

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

sin ; his sin cannot be recalled. Though God by pardon take
off the guilt of Peter's denying our Saviour, yet it will be eter-
nally true that Peter did deny him. It is repugnant to the
righteousness and the truth of God, to make that which was
once true to become false, and not true ; that is, to make a truth
to become a lie, and a lie to become a truth.

This is well argued from Heb. vi. 18. It is impossible for
God to lie. The apostle argues, that what God had promised
and sworn, will come to pass, and cannot but come to pass.1
Now if God could make a thing past not to be past, this conse-
quence would not be good, for then he might make himself not
to have promised, not to have sworn, after he has promised and
sworn : and so if there were a power to undo that which is
past, there would be no foundation for faith, no certainty of
revelation. It cannot be asserted, that God has created the
world, that God has sent his Son to die, that God has accepted
his death for man : these might not be true, if it were possible
that that which has been done might be said never to have
been done : so that what any may imagine to be a want of
power in God, is the highest perfection of God; and the greatest
security to a believing creature that has to do with God.

Again, some things are impossible to be done, because of
God's ordination. Some things are impossible, not in their own
nature, but in regard of the determined will of God. So God
might have destroyed the world after Adam's fall, but it was
impossible; not that God wanted power to do it, but because
he did not only decree from eternity to create the world, but
did also decree to redeem the world by Jesus Christ, and erected
the world in order to the manifestation of his glory in Christ,
Eph. i. 4, 5. The choice of some in Christ was before the
foundation of the world : supposing that there was no hinder-
ance in the justice of God to pardon the sin of Adam after his
fall, and to execute no punishment on him; yet in regard of
God's threatening, that in the day he ate of the forbidden fruit
he should die, it was impossible. So though it was possible
that the cup should pass from our blessed Saviour, that is, pos-
sible in its own nature; yet it was not possible in regard of the
determination of God's will, since he had both decreed and
published his will to redeem man by the passion and blood of
his Son. These things God by his absolute power might have
done, but upon the account of his decree they were impossible,
because it is repugnant to the nature of God to be mutable. It
is to deny his own wisdom which contrived them, and his own
will which resolved them, not to do that which he had decreed
to do. This would be a diffidence in his wisdom, and a change
of his will. The impossibility of them is no result of a want of

i Becan. Sum Theol. p. 84. Orel, dfl Deo, cap. 22.

ON THE POWER OF GOD. 35

power, no mark of an imperfection, of feebleness and impo-
tence; but the perfection of immutability and unchangeableness.

Thus have I endeavoured to give you a right notion of this
excellent attribute of the power of God, in as plain terms
as I could; which may serve us for a matter of meditation,
admiration, fear of him, trust in him, which are the proper uses
we should make of this doctrine of Divine power. The want
of a right understanding of this doctrine of the Divine power
has caused many to run into mighty absurdities; I have there-
fore taken the more pains to explain it.

2. The second thing I proposed, is — the. reasons to prove
God to be omnipotent. The Scripture describes God by this
attribute of power, " He hath done whatsoever he hath
pleased/' Psal. cxv. 3. It sometimes sets forth his power in a
way of derision of those that seem to doubt of it. When Sarah
doubted of his ability to give her a child in her old age, "Is
any thing too hard for the Lord?" Gen. xviii. 14. They de-
serve to be scoffed at, that will despoil God of his strength, and
measure him by their shallow models. And when Moses ut-
tered something of unbelief of this attribute, as if God were not
able to feed 600,000 Israelites besides women and children,
which he aggravates by a kind of imperious scoff; "Shall the
flocks and the herds be slain for them, to suffice them? or shall
all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them?" Numb,
xi. 22. God takes him up short, ver. 23. "Is the Lord's hand
waxed short?" What, can any weakness seize upon my hand?
Can I not draw out of my own treasures what is needful for a
supply? The hand of God is not at one time strong, and ano-
ther time feeble. Hence it is that we read of the hand and arm
of God, an out-stretched arm; because the strength of a man
is exerted by his hand and arm; the power of God is called
the arm of his power, and the right hand of his strength. Some-
times, according to the different manifestations of it, it is ex-
pressed by finger, when a less power is evidenced; by hand,
when something greater; by arm, when more mighty than the
former. Since God is eternal, without limits of time, he is also
almighty, without limits of strength. As he cannot be said to
be more in being now than he was before, so he is neither
more nor less in strength than he was before; as he cannot
cease to be, so he cannot cease to be powerful, because he is
eternal. His eternity and power are linked together as equally
demonstrable, Rom. i. 20: God is called the God of gods, El
elohim, Dan. xi. 36, the mighty of mighties, whence all mighty
persons have their activity and vigour; he is called the Lord of
hosts, as being the Creator and Conductor of the heavenly
militia.

Reason (1.) The power that is in creatures demonstrates a

3(} ON THE POWER OF GOD.

greater and an inconceivable power in God. Nothing in the
world is without a power of activity according to its nature;
no creature but can act something. The sun warms and en-
lightens everything; it sends its influences upon the earth, into
the bowels of the earth, into the depths of the sea; all genera-
tions owe themselves to its instrumental virtue. How power-
ful is a small seed to rise into a mighty tree, with a lofty top,
and extensive branches, and send forth other seeds, which can
still multiply into numberless plants. How wonderful is the
power of the Creator, who has endowed so small a creature as
a seed with so fruitful an activity! Yet this is but the virtue of
a limited nature: God is both the producing and preserving
cause of all the virtue in any creature, in every creature. The
power of every creature belongs to him as the Fountain, and is
truly his power in the creature. As he is the first being, he is
the original of all being; as he is the first good, he is the
spring of all goodness; as he is the first truth, he is the source
of all truth; so, as he is the first power, he is the fountain of
all power.

[1.] He therefore that communicates to the creature what
power it has, contains eminently much more power in himself.
" He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know?" Psal.
xciv. 10. So he that gives created beings power, shall not he
be powerful? The first Being must have as much power as he'
has given to others: he could not transfer that upon another,
which he did not transcendently possess himself. The sole
Cause of created power cannot be destitute of any power in
himself. We see that the power of one creature transcends
the power of another. Beasts can do the things that plants
cannot do; besides the power of growth, they have a power of
sense and progressive motion. Men can do more than beasts;
they have rational souls to measure the earth and heavens, and
to be repositories of multitudes of things, notions, and conclu-
sions. We may well imagine angels to be far superior to man:
the power of the Creator must far surmount the power of the
creature, and must needs be infinite; for if it be limited, it is
limited by himself or by some other: if by some other, he is no
longer a Creator, but a creature; for that which limits him in
his nature, did communicate that nature to him: not by him-
self, for he would not deny himself any necessary perfection.
We must still conclude a reserve of power in him, that he that
made these can make many more of the same kind.

[2.] All the power which is distinct in the creatures must be
united in God. One creature has a strength to do this, another
to do that; every creature is as a cistern filled with a particular
and limited power, according to the capacity of its nature, from
this Fountain; all are distinct streams from God. But the

ON THE POWER OF GOD. 37

strength of every creature, though distinct in the rank of crea-
tures, is united in God, the centre whence those lines were
drawn, the fountain whence those streams were derived. If
the power of one creature be admirable, as the power of an
angel, which, the psalmist says, excels in strength, Psal. ciii.
20; how much greater must the power of a legion of angels
be! How inconceivably superior the power of all those num-
bers of spiritual natures, which are the excellent works of God!
Now if all this particular power which is in every angel dis-
tinct, were compacted in one angel, how would it exceed our
understanding, and be above our power to form a distinct con-
ception of it! What is thus divided in every angel, must be
thought united in the Creator of angels, and far more excellent
in him. Every thing is in a more noble manner in the foun-
tain, than in the streams which distil and descend from it. He
that is the original of all those distinct powers, must be the
seat of all power without distinction. In him is the union of
all without division; what is in them as a quality, is in him as
his essence. Again, if all the powers of several creatures, with
all their principal qualities and vigours, both of beasts, plants,
and rational creatures, were united in one subject; as if one
lion had the strength of all the lions that ever were; or if one
elephant had the strength of all the elephants that ever were;
nay, if one bee had all the power of motion and stinging that
all bees ever had, it would have a vast strength; but if the
strength of all those thus gathered into one of every kind should
be lodged into one sole creature, one man, would it not be a
strength too big for our conception? Or suppose one cannon
had all the force of all the cannons that ever were in the world,
what a battery would it make, and, as it were, shake the whole
frame of heaven and earth! All this strength must be much
more incomprehensible in God; all is united in him. If it
were in one individual created nature, it would still be but a
finite power in a finite nature: but in God it is infinite and
immense.

Reason (2.) If there were not an incomprehensible power in
God, he would not be infinitely perfect. God is the first Being;
it can only be said of him, " Est," he is. All other things are
nothing to him, less than nothing, and vanity, Isa. xl. 17, and
reputed as nothing, Dan. iv. 35. All the inhabitants of the
earth, with all their wit and strength, are counted as if they
were not; just, in comparison with him and his being, as a
little mote in the sun-beams. God therefore is a pure Being.
Any kind of weakness whatsoever is a defect, a degree of not
being; so far as any thing wants this or that power, it may be
said not to be. Were there any thing of weakness in God, any
want of strength which belonged to the perfection of a nature,
Vol. II.— 6

38

ON THE POWER OF (iOD.

it might be said of God, He is not this or that, he wants this or
that perfection of being, and so he would not be a pure Being,
there would be something of not being in him. But God being
the first Being, the only original Being, he is infinitely distant
from not being, and therefore infinitely distant from any thing
of weakness.

Again, if God can know whatsoever is possible to be done
by him and cannot do it, there would be something more in
his knowledge than in his power.1 What would then follow?
That the essence of God would be in some regard greater than
itself, and less than itself, because his knowledge and his power
are his essence; his power as much his essence, as his know-
ledge. And therefore in regard of his knowledge his essence
would be greater, in regard of his power his essence would
be less, which is a thing impossible to be conceived in a
most perfect Being. We must understand this of those things,
which are properly and in their own nature subjected to
the Divine knowledge; for otherwise God knows more than
he can do; for he knows sin, but he cannot act it, because sin
belongs not to power, but weakness; and sin comes under the
knowledge of God, not in itself and its own nature, but as it is
a defect from God, and contrary to good, which is the proper
object of Divine knowledge. He knows it also not as possible
to be done by himself, but as possible to be done by the crea-
ture. Again, if God were not omnipotent, we might imagine
something more perfect than God:2 for if we bar God from
any one thing which in its own nature is possible, we may im-
agine a being that can do that thing, one that is able to effect
it; and so imagine an agent greater than God, a being able to
do more than God is able to do, and consequently a being more
perfect than God: but no being more perfect than God can be
imagined by any creature. Nothing can be called most perfect
if any thing of activity be wanting to it. Active power follows
the perfection of a thing, and all things are counted more noble,
by how much more of efficacy and virtue they possess. We
count those the best and most perfect plants, that have the
greatest medicinal virtue in them, and power of working upon
the body for the cure of distempers. God is perfect of himself,
and therefore most powerful of himself. If his perfection in
wisdom and goodness be unsearchable, his power, which be-
longs to perfection, and without which all the other excellencies
of his nature were insignificant, and could not show themselves,
(as was before evidenced,) must be unsearchable also. It is by
the title of Almighty he is denominated, when declared to be
unsearchable to perfection. " Canst thou by searching find out
God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?" Job

i Victorin. in Petar. torn. 1. p. 333. 2 Ibid. p. 233.

ON THE POWER OF GOD. 39

xi. 7. This would be limited and searched out, if he were des-
titute of an active ability to do whatsoever he pleased to do,
whatsoever was possible to be done. As he has not a perfect
liberty of will, if he could not will what he pleased, so he
would not have a perfect activity, if he could not do what he
willed.

Reason (3.) The simplicity of God manifests it. Every sub-
stance, the more spiritual it is, the more powerful it is. All
perfections are more united in a simple than in a compounded
being. Angels being spirits, are more powerful than bodies.
Where there is the greatest simplicity there is the greatest
unity; and where there is the greatest unity there is the
greatest power. Where there is a composition of a faculty and
a member, the member or organ may be weakened, and ren-
dered unable to act, though the power does still reside in the
faculty. As a man, when his arm or hand is cut off or broken,
he has the faculty of motion still; but he has lost that instru-
ment, that part whereby he did manifest and put forth that
motion: but God being a pure spiritual nature, has no mem-
bers, no organs to be defaced or impaired. All impediments of
action arise either from the nature of the thing that acts, or
from something without it. There can be no hinderance to
God to do whatsoever he pleases; not in himself, because he is
the most simple Being, has no contrariety in himself, is not
composed of divers things; and it cannot be from any thing
without himself, because nothing is equal to him, much less
superior. He is the greatest, the Supreme: all things were made
by him, depend upon him, nothing can disappoint his intentions.

Reason (4.) The miracles that have been in the world evi-
dence the power of God. Extraordinary productions have
awakened men from their stupidity, to the acknowledgment of
the immensity of Divine power. Miracles are such effects as
have been wrought without the assistance and co-operation of
natural causes, yea, contrary, and besides the ordinary course
of nature, above the reach of any created power. Miracles
have been; and, says Bradwardine,1 to deny that ever such
things were, is uncivil: it is inhuman to deny all the histories
of Jews and Christians. Whosoever denies miracles must deny
all possibility of miracles, and so must imagine himself fully
skilled in the extent of Divine power. How was the sun sus-
pended from its motion for some hours, Josh x. 13; the dead
raised from the grave ; those reduced from the brink of it, that
had been brought near to it by prevailing diseases; and this
by a word speaking! How were the famished lions bridled
from exercising their rage upon Daniel, exposed to them for
a prey! Dan. vi. 22; the activity of the fire curbed for the

' Lib. Leap. 1. p. 38.

40

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

preservation of the three children! Dan. iii. 25. Which proves
a Deity more powerful than all creatures. No power upon
earth can hinder the operation of the fire upon combustible
matter, when they are united, unless by quenching the fire or
removing the matter : but no created power can restrain the
fire, so long as it remains so, from acting according to its na-
ture. This was done by God in the case of the three children,
and that of the burning bush, Exod. iii. 2. It was as much
miraculous that the bush should not be consumed, as it was
natural that it should burn by the efficacy of the fire upon it.
No element is so obstinate and deaf, but it hears and obeys his
voice, and performs his orders, though contrary to its own na-
ture: all the violence of the creature is suspended as soon as it
receives his command. He that gave the original to nature,
can take away the necessity of nature: he presides over crea-
tures, but is not confined to those laws he has prescribed to
creatures.1 He framed nature, and can turn the channels of
nature according to his own pleasure. Men dig into the bowels
of nature, search into all the treasures of it, to find medicines
to cure a disease, and after all their attempts it may prove
labour in vain: but God, by one act of his will, one word of
his mouth, overturns the victory of death, and rescues from the
most desperate diseases. All the miracles which were wrought
by the apostles, either speaking some words, or touching with
the hand, were not effected by any virtue inherent in their
words, or in their touches.2 For such virtue inherent in any
created finite subject would be created and finite itself, and
consequently were incapable to produce effects, which re-
quired an infinite virtue, as miracles do, which are above the
power of nature. So when our Saviour wrought miracles, it
was not by any quality resident in his human nature, but by
the sole power of his Divinity. The flesh could only do what
was proper to the flesh; but the Deity did what was proper to
the Deity. God alone does wonders, Psal. cxxxvi. 4; exclud-
ing every other cause from producing such things. He only
does those things which are above the power of nature, and
cannot be wrought by any natural causes whatsoever. He
does not hereby put his omnipotence to any stress: it is as easy
with him to turn nature out of its settled course, as it was to
place it in that station it holds, and appoint it that course it
runs. All the works of nature are indeed miracles and testi-
monies of the power of God producing them, and sustaining
them; but works above the power of nature, being novelties
and unusual, strike men with a greater admiration upon their
appearance, because they are not the products of nature, but
the convulsions of it.

1 Damianus in Petar. 2 Faucli. in Acts, vol. 2. § 56.

ON THE POWER OF GOD 4|

I might also add as an argument, the power of the mind of
man to conceive more than has been wrought by God in the
world. And God can work whatsoever perfection the mind of
man can conceive; otherwise the reaches of a created imagi-
nation and fancy would be more extensive than the power of
God. His power, therefore, is far greater than the conception
of any intellectual creature; else the creature would be of a
greater capacity to conceive than God is to effect. The crea-
ture would have a power of conception above God's power of
activity; and consequently, a creature in some respect greater
than himself. Now whatsoever a creature can conceive possi-
ble to be done, is but finite in its own nature ; and if God could
not produce what being a created understanding can conceive
possible to be done, he would be less than infinite in power,
nay, he could not go to the extent of what is finite. But [ have
touched this before; that God can create more than he has
created, and in a more perfect way of being, as considered sim-
ply in themselves.

3. The third general thing, is to declare, how the power of
God appears in creation, in government, in redemption.

(1.) In creation, with what majestic lines does God set forth
his power, in the giving being and endowments to all the crea-
tures in the world! Job xxxviii. All that is in heaven and earth
is his, and shows the greatness of his power, glory, victory and
majesty, 1 Chron. xxix. 11. The heaven being so magnificent
a piece of work, is called, emphatically, " the firmament of his
power," Psal. cl. 1; his power being more conspicuous and
unveiled in that glorious arch of the world. Indeed, " God
exalteth by his power," Job xxxvi. 22; that is, exalts himself
by his power in all the works of his hands; in the smallest
shrub, as well as the most glorious sun. All his works of
nature are truly miracles, though we consider them not, being
blinded with too frequent and customary a sight of them; yet
in the neglect of all the rest, the view of the heavens more af-
fects us with astonishment at the might of God's arm. These
declare his glory, and " the firmament showeth his handy
work," Psal. xix. 1. And the Psalmist peculiarly calls them
his heavens, and the work of his fingers, Psal. viii. 3: these
were immediately created by God, whereas many other things
in the world were brought into being by the power of God, yet
by the means of the influence of the heavens.

His power is the first thing evident in the story of creation.
" In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,"
Gen. i. 1. There is no appearance of any thing in this decla-
ratory preface, but of power: the characters of wisdom march
after, in the distinct formation of things, and animating them
with suitable qualities for a universal good. By heaven and

42 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

earth, is meant the whole mass of the creatures; by heaven, all
the airy region, with all the host of it; by the earth is meant,
all that which makes the entire inferior globe. The Jews ob-
serve, that in the first of Genesis, in the whole chapter unto the
finishing the work in six days, God is called otiSn, which is a
name of power, and that thirty-two times in that chapter; but
after the finishing the six days' work, he is called by a name
which, according to their notion, is a name of goodness and
kindness.1 His power is first visible in framing the world, be-
fore his goodness is visible in the sustaining and preserving it.
It was by this name of power and Almighty that he was known
in the first ages of the world, not by his name Jehovah: "And
I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the
name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not
known to them," Exod. vi. 3. Not but that they were ac-
quainted with the name, but did not experience the intent of
the name, which signified his truth in the performance of his
promises: they knew him by that name, as promising, but they
knew him not by that name, as performing. He would be
known by his name Jehovah, true to his word, when he was
about to effect the deliverance from Egypt; a type of the eter-
nal redemption, wherein the truth of God, in performing of his
first promise, is gloriously magnified. And hence it is that God
is called Almighty more in the book of Job, than in all the
Scripture besides, I think about thirty-two times, and Jehovah
but once, which is Job xii. 9, unless in Job xxxviii., when God
is introduced speaking himself; which is an argument of Job's
living before the deliverance from Egypt; when God was
known more by his works of creation than by the performance
of his promises, before the name Jehovah was formally pub-
lished. Indeed, this attribute of his eternal power, is the first
thing visible and intelligible upon the first glance of the eye
upon the creatures, Rom. i. 20. Bring a man out of the cave
where he has been nursed, without seeing any thing out of the
confines of it, and let him lift up his eyes to the heavens, and
take a prospect of that glorious body the sun, then cast them
down to the earth, and behold the surface of it with its green
clothing; the first notion which will start up in his mind from
that spring of wonders is that of power, which he will at first
adore with a religious astonishment. The wisdom of God in
them is not so presently apparent, till after a more exquisite
consideration of his works, and knowledge of the properties of
their natures, the conveniency of their situations, and the useful-
ness of their functions, and the order wherein they are linked
together for the good of the universe.

By this creative power God is often distinguished from all

' Mercer, p. 7, col. 1, 2.

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

43

the idols and false gods in the world. And by this title he sets
forth himself when he would act any great and wonderful work
in the world. He is great above all gods, for he has done
whatsoever he pleased In heaven and in earth, Psal. cxxxv. 5,
6. Upon this is founded all the worship he challenges in the
world, as his peculiar glory. " Thou art worthy, 0 Lord, to
receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all
things," Rev. iv. 11; and x. 6. " I have made the earth, and
created man upon it : I, even my hands, have stretched out the
heavens, and all their host have I commanded," Isa. xlv. 12.
What is the issue ? " They shall be ashamed, and also con-
founded, all of them — that are makers of idols," ver. 16. And
the weakness of idols is expressed by this title, " The gods that
have not made the heavens and the earth," Jer. x. 11. "The
portion of Jacob is not like them: for he is the former of all
things," ver. 16.

What is not that God able to do, that has created so great a
world? How does the power of God appear in creation!

[1.] In making the world of nothing. When we say, the
world was made of nothing, we mean, that there was no mat-
ter existent for God to work upon, but what he raised himself
in the first act of creation. In this regard, the power of God
in creation surmounts his power in providence. Creation sup-
poses nothing; providence supposes something in being. Crea-
tion intimates a creature making; providence speaks a thing
already made, and capable of government, and in government.
God uses second causes to bring about his purposes.

The world was made of nothing. The earth which is des-
cribed as the first matter, without any form or ornament, with-
out any distinction or figures, was of God's forming in the
bulk, before he did adorn it with his pencil, Gen. i. 1, 2. God
in the beginning creating the heaven and the earth, includes
two things:1 First, that those were created in the beginning of
time, and before all other things. Secondly, that God began
the creation of the world from those things. Therefore before
the heavens and the earth there was nothing absolutely created,
and therefore no matter in being before an act of creation pass-
ed upon it. It could not be eternal, because nothing can be
eternal but God; it must therefore have a beginning. If it had
a beginning from itself, then it was before it was. If it acted
in the making itself before it was made, then it had a being
before it hrd a being; for that which is nothing can act no-
thing; the action of any thing supposes the existence of the
thing which acts. It being made, it was not before it was
made; for to be made is to be brought into being. It was made
then by another, and that Maker is God. It is necessary that
1 Suarez. vol. iii* p. 33.

44 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

the first original of things was from nothing: when we see one
thing to arise from another, we must suppose an original of
the first of each kind: as when we see a tree spring up from a
seed, we know that seed came out of the bowels of another
tree; it had a parent, and it had a matter; we must come to
some first, or else we run into an endless maze: we must come
to some first tree, some first seed that had no cause of the same
kind, no matter of it, but was mere nothing. Creation does
suppose a production from nothing; because if you suppose a
thing without any real or actual existence, it is not capable of
any other production than from nothing. • Nothing must be
supposed before the world, or we must suppose it eternal, and
that is to deny it to be a creature, and make it God. The crea-
tion of spiritual substances, such as angels and souls, evinces
this: those things that are purely spiritual, and consist not of
matter, cannot pretend to any original from matter, and there-
fore they rose up from nothing. If spiritual things arose from
nothing, much more may corporeal, because they are of a
lower nature than spiritual. And he that can create a higher
nature of nothing, can create an inferior nature of nothing. As
bodily things are more imperfect than spiritual, so their crea-
tion may be supposed easier than that of spiritual. There was
as little need of any matter to be wrought to his hands, to con-
trive into this visible fabric, as there was to erect such an ex-
cellent order as the glorious cherubim.

This creation of things from nothing, speaks an infinite
power. The distance between nothing and being, has been
always counted so great, that nothing but an infinite power can
make such distances meet together; either for nothing to pass
into being, or being to return to nothing. To have a thing
arise from nothing, was so difficult a text to those that were
ignorant of the Scripture, that they knew not how to fathom it;
and therefore laid it down as a certain rule, that of nothing,
nothing is made: which is true of a created power, but not of
an uncreated and almighty power. A greater distance cannot
be imagined than that which is between nothing and some-
thing, that which has no being and that which has. And a
greater power cannot be imagined, than that which brings
something out of nothing. 2 We know not how to conceive a
nothing, and afterwards a being from that nothing : but we
must remain swallowed up in admiration of the cause that
gives it being, and acknowledge it to be without any bounds
and measures of greatness and power. The further any thing
is from being, the more immense must that power be which
brings it into being: it is not conceivable that the power of all
the angels in one, can give being to the smallest spire of grass.

1 Suarez, vol. iii. p. 6. * Amyral. Morale, torn. 1. p. 252.

ON THE POWER OF GOD. 45

To imagine therefore so small a thing as a bee, a fly, a grain
of corn, or an atom of dust? to be made of nothing, would stu-
pify any creature in the consideration of it; much more to be-
hold the heavens with all the troop of stars, the earth with all
its embroidery, and the sea with all her inhabitants of fish, and
man, the noblest creature of all, to arise out of the womb of
mere emptiness. Indeed God had not acted as an almighty
Creator if he had stood in need of any materials, but of his
own framing. It had been as much as his Deity was worth,
if he had not had all within the compass of his own power, that
was necessary to operation; if he must have been beholden to
something without himself, and above himself, for matter to
work upon. Had there been such a necessity, we could not
have imagined him to be omnipotent, and consequentlv not
God.

In this the power of God exceeds the power of all natural
and rational agents. Nature, or the order of second causes,
has a vast power. The sun generates flies and other insects,
but of some matter, the slime of the earth or a dunghill: the
sun and the earth bring forth harvests of corn, but from seed
first sown in the earth: fruits are brought forth, but from the
sap of the plant. Were there no seed or plants in the earth,
the power of the earth would be idle, and the influence of the
sun insignificant; whatsoever strength either of them had in
their nature, must be useless without matter to work upon. All
the united strength of nature cannot produce the least thing out
of nothing; it may multiply and increase things, by the power-
ful blessing God gave it at the first erecting of the world, but
it cannot create. The word which signifies creation, used in
Gen. i. 1, is not ascribed to any second cause, but only to God;
a word in that sense as incommunicable to any thing else, as
the action it signifies.

Rational creatures can produce admirable pieces of art from
small things, yet still out of matter created to their hands. Ex-
cellent garments may be woven, but from the entrails of a
small silk-worm. Delightful and medicinal spirits and essences
may be extracted by ingenious chemists, but out of the bodies
of plants and minerals. No picture can be drawn without
colours; no statue engraven without stone; no building erected
without timber, stones, and other materials. Nor can any man
raise a thought, without some matter framed to his hands, or
cast into him. Matter is by nature formed to the hands of all
artificers; they bestow a new figure upon it, by the help of in-
struments, and the product of their own wit and skill; but they
create not the least particle of matter: when they want it, they
must be supplied, or else stand still, as well as nature; for none
of them, nor all together, can make the least mite or atom.
Vol. II.— 7

46 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

And when they have wrought all that they can, they will not
want some to find a flaw and defect in their work. God as a
Creator has the only prerogative, to draw what he pleases
from nothing, without any defect, without any imperfection:
he can raise what matter he pleases; ennoble it with what
form he pleases. Of nothing, nothing can be made by any
created agent. But the omnipotent Architect of the world is
not under the same necessity, nor is limited to the same rule,
and tied by so short a tether as created nature, or an ingenious,
yet feeble artificer.

[2.] It appears, in raising such variety of creatures from this
barren womb of nothing, or from the matter which he first
commanded to appear out of nothing. Had there been any
pre-existent matter, yet the bringing forth such varieties and
diversities of excellent creatures; some with life, some with
sense, and others with reason superadded to the rest; and those
out of indisposed and undigested matter, would argue an infi-
nite power resident in the first Author of this variegated fabric.
From this matter he formed that glorious sun, which every day
displays its glory, scatters its beams, clears the air, ripens our
fruits, and maintains the propagation of creatures in the world.
From this matter he lighted those torches which he set in the
heaven to qualify the darkness of the night: from this he com-
pacted those bodies of light, which though they seem to us as
little sparks, as if they were the glow-worms of heaven, yet
some of them exceed in greatness this globe of the earth on
which we live. And the highest of them has so quick a mo-
tion, that some tell us tfiey run in the space of every hour forty-
two millions of leagues: From the same matter he drew the
earth, on which we walk; from thence he extracted the flowers
to adorn it, the hills to secure the valleys, and the rocks to for-
tify it against the inundations of the sea. And on this dull and
sluggish element, he bestowed so great a fruitfulness, to main-
tain, feed, and multiply so many seeds of different kinds, and
conferred upon those little bodies of seeds a power to multiply
their kinds in conjunction with the fruitfulness of the earth to
many thousands. From this rude matter, the slime, or dust of
the earth, he kneaded the body of man, and wrought so curi-
ous a fabric, fit to entertain a soul of a heavenly extraction,
formed by the breath of God, Gen. ii. 7. He brought light out
of thick darkness, and living creatures, fish and fowl, out of
inanimate waters, Gen. i. 20; and gave a power of spontaneous
motion to things arising from that matter which had no living
motion. To convert one thing into another, is an evidence of
infinite power, as well as creating things of nothing; for the
distance between life and not life, is next to that which is be-
tween being and not being. God first forms matter out of no-

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

47

thing, and then draws upon and from this indisposed chaos
many excellent portraitures. Neither earth nor sea were capa-
ble of producing living creatures, without an infinite power
working upon it, and bringing into it such variety and multi-
tude of forms: and this is called by some mediate creation; as
the producing the chaos, which was without form and void, is
called immediate creation. Is not the power of the potter ad-
mirable, in forming out of tempered clay such varieties of neat
and curious vessels, that after they are fashioned, and passed
the furnace, look as if they were not of any kin to the matter
they are formed of? And is it not the same with the glass-
maker, that from a little melted jelly of sand and ashes, or the
dust of flint, can blow up so pure a body as glass, and in such
varieties of shapes? And is not the power of God more admi-
rable, because infinite, in speaking so beautiful a world out of
nothing; and such varieties of living creatures from matter
utterly indisposed in its own nature for such forms?

[3.] And this conducts to a third thing, wherein the power
of God appears, in that he did all this with the greatest ease
and facility.

Without instruments. As God made the world without the
advice, so without the assistance of any other. He stretched
forth the heavens alone, and spread abroad the earth by him-
self, Isa. xliv. 24. He had no engine, but his word; no pattern
or model, but himself. What need can he have of instruments,
that is able to create what instruments he pleases? Where
there is no resistance in the object, where no need of pre-
paration or instrumental advantage in the agent, there the
actual determination of the will is sufficient to a production.
What instrument need we to the thinking of a thought, or
an act of our will? Men, indeed, cannot act any thing with-
out tools; the best artificer must be beholden to something
else for his noblest works of art. The carpenter cannot
work without his rule, and axe, and saw, and other in-
struments. The watchmaker cannot act without his file and
pliers. But in creation, there is nothing necessary to God's
bringing forth a world, but a simple act of his will, which is
both the principal cause, and instrumental. He had no scaf-
folds to rear it, no engines to polish it, no hammers or mattocks
to clod and work it together. It is a miserable error to mea-
sure the actions of an infinite cause by the imperfect model of
a finite, since by his own power and outstretched arm, he made
the heaven and the earth, Jer. xxxii. 17. What excellency
would God have in his work above others, if he needed instru-
ments, as feeble men do ? ' Every artificer is counted more ad-
mirable, that can frame curious works with the less matter,

1 Gassend.

48 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

fewer tools, and assistances: God uses instruments in his works
of providence, not for necessity, but for the display of his wis-
dom in the management of them; yet those instruments were
originally framed by him without instruments. Indeed some
of the Jews thought the angels were the instruments of God in
creating man, and that those words, " Let us make man in our
image," Gen. i. 26, were spoken to angels. But certainly the
Scripture, which denies God any counsellor in the model of
creation, Isa. xl. 12 — 14, does not join any instrument with him
in the operation, which is every where ascribed to himself with-
out created assistance, Isa. xlv. 18. It was not to angels God
spake in that affair; if so, man was made after the image of
angels, if they were companions with God in that work. But
it is every where said, that man was made after the image of
God, Gen. i. 27. Again, the image wherein man was created,
was that of dominion over the lower creatures, as appears ver.
26; which we find not conferred upon angels; and it is not likely
that Moses should introduce the angels, as God's privy council,
of whose creation he had not mentioned one syllable. Let us
make man, rather signifies the Trinity, and not spoken in a royal
style, as some think. Which of the Jewish kings wrote in the
style, " We ?" That was the custom of later times ; and we must
not measure the language of Scripture by the style of Europe, of
a far later date than the penning the history of the creation. If
angels were his counsellors in the creation of the material world,
what instrument had he in the creation of angels? If his own
Avisdom were the director, and his own will the producer of the
one, why should we not think, that he acted by his sole power
in the other? It is concluded by most that the power of creation
cannot be derived to any creature, it being a work of omnipo-
tency. The drawing something out from nothing, cannot be
communicated without a communication of the Deity itself.
The educing things from nothing exceeds the capacity of any
creature, and the creature is of too feeble a nature to be elevated
to so high a degree. It is very unreasonable to think, that God
needed any such aid. If an instrument were necessary for God
to create the world, then he could not do it. without that instru-
ment: if he could not, he were not then all-sufficient in himself,
if he depended upon any thing without himself, for the produc-
tion or consummation of his works. And it might be inquired,
how that instrument came into being: if it begun to be, and
there was a time when it was not, it must have its being from
the power of God; and then, why could not God as well create
all things without an instrument, as create that instrument with-
out an instrument? For there was no more power necessary to
a producing the whole without instruments, than to produce one
creature without an instrument.

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

49

No creature can in its own nature be an instrument of crea-
tion. If any such instrument were used by God, it must be ele-
vated in a miraculous and supernatural way, and what is so an
instrument, is in effect no instrument; for it works nothing by
its own nature, but from an elevation of a superior nature, and
beyond its own nature. All the power in the instrument is truly
the power of God, and not the power of the instrument. And
therefore what God does by an instrument, he could do as well
without. If you should see one apply a straw to iron, for the
cutting of it, and effect it, you would not call the straw an in-
strument in that action, because there was nothing in the nature
of the straw to do it. It was done wholly by some other force,
which might have done it as well without the straw as with it.
The narrative of the creation in Genesis removes any instru-
ment from God. The plants which are preserved and propa-
gated by the influence of the sun, were created the day before
the sun, viz. on the third day, whereas the light was collected
into the body of the sun on the fourth day, Gen. i. 11. 16; to
show, that though the plants do instrumentally owe their yearly
beauty and preservation to the sun, yet they did not in any
manner owe their creation to the instrumental heat and vigour
of it.

God created the world by a word, by a simple act of his
will. The whole creation is wrought by a word; " God said,
Let there be light;" and, "God said, Let there be a firma-
ment," Gen. i. 3. 6, &c. throughout the whole chapter. Not
that we should understand it of a sensible word, but to express
the easiness of this operation to God, as easy as a word to man.
We must understand it of a powerful order of his own will,
which is expressed by the psalmist in the nature of a com-
mand: "He spake and it was done, he commanded and it stood
fast," Psal. xxxiii. 6; and, "He commanded and they were
created," Psal. cxlviii. 5. At the same instant that he willed
them to stand forth, they did stand forth. The efficacious com-
mand of the Creator was the original of all things; the insensi-
bility of nothing obeyed the act of his will. Creation is there-
fore entitled a calling; He calls those things which are not, as
if they were, Ron], iv. 17. To create is no more with God,
than to call; and what he calls, presents itself before him in
the same posture that he calls it. He did with more ease make
a world, than we can form a thought. It is the same ease to
him to create worlds, as to decree them: there needs no more
than a resolve to have things wrought at such a time, and they
will be, according to his pleasure. This will is his power;
"Let there be light," is the precept of his will; and, "there
was light," is the effect of his precept. By a word was the
matter of the heavens and the earth framed: by a word things

50 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

separate themselves from the rude mass into their proper forms.
By a word light associates inself into one body, and forms a
sun: by a word are the heavens, as it were, bespangled with
stars, and the earth dressed with flowers: by a word is the world
both ceiled and floored. One act of his will formed the world,
and perfected its beauty. All the variety and several exploits
of his power were not caused by distinct words or acts of
power. God uttered not distinct words for distinct species; as,
Let there be an elephant, and, Let there be a lion; but as he
produced those various creatures out of one matter, so by one
word. By one single command, those varieties of creatures,
with their clothing, ornaments, distinct notes, qualities, func-
tions, were brought forth. By one word, all the seeds of the
earth, with their various virtues, Gen. i. 11. By one word, all
the fish of the sea and fowls of the air in their distinct natures,
instincts, colours, Gen. i. 20. By one word, all the beasts of
the field, with their varieties, Gen. i. 24. Heaven and earth,
spiritual and corporeal creatures, mortal and immortal, the
greater and the less, visible and invisible, were formed with
the same ease. ' A word made the least, and a word made the
greatest. It is as little difficult to him to produce the highest
angel, as the lightest atom. It is enough for the existence of
the stateliest cherub, for God only to will his being. It was
enough for the forming and fixing the sun, to will the com-
pacting of light into one body. The creation of the soul of man
is expressed by inspiration, Gen. ii. 7, to show, that it is as
easy with God to create a rational soul, as for man to breathe. 2
Breathing is natural to man, by a communication of God's
goodness; and the creation of the soul is as easy to God, by
virtue of his almighty word. As there was no proportion be-
tween nothing and being; so there was as little proportion
between a word and such glorious effects. A mere voice,
coming from an omnipotent will, was capable to produce such
varieties, which angels and men have seen in all ages of the
world; and this without weariness. What labour is there in
willing, what pain could there be in speaking a word? The
Creator of the ends of the earth is not weary, Isa. xl. 28. And
though he be said to rest after the creation, it is to be meant a
rest from work, not a repose from weariness. So great is the
power of God, that without any matter, without any instru-
ments, he could create many worlds, and with the same ease
as he made this.

[4.] I might add also, the appearance of this power in the
instantaneous production of things. The ending of his word
was not only the beginning, but the perfection of every thing
he spake into being; not several words to several parts and

1 August. 2 Tlicodoret.

ON THE POWER OF GOD. 5j

members, but one word, one breath of his mouth, one act of
his will to the whole species of the creatures, and to every
member of each individual. Heaven and earth were created
in a moment, six days went to their disposal; and that comely
order we observe in the world was the work of a week. The
matter was formed as soon as God had spoken the word; and
in every part of the creation, as soon as God spake the word,
Let it be so, the answer immediately is, It was so, Gen. i. ;
which notes the present standing up of the creature according
to the act of his will. And therefore one observes, 1 that "Let
there be light," and "there was light," in the Hebrew are the
same words, without any alteration of letter or point, only the
conjunctive particle added, -iin irri -nsnrp Let there be light, and,
let there be light, to show, that the same instant of the speaking
the Divine word, was the appearance of the creature: so great
was the authority of his will.

(2.) We are to show God's power in the government of the
world. As God decreed from eternity the creation of things in
time, so he decreed from eternity the particular ends of creatures,
and their operations respecting those ends. Now, as there was
need of his power to execute his decree of creation, there is
also need of his power to execute his decree about the manner
of government.2 All government is an act of the understand-
ing, will, and power. Prudence to design belongs to the under-
standing, the election of the means belongs to the will, and the
accomplishment of the whole is an act of power. It is a hard
matter to determine which is most necessary: wisdom stands
in as much need of power to perfect, as power does of wisdom
to model and draw out a scheme; though wisdom directs,
power must effect. Wisdom and power are distinct things
among men: a poor man in a cottage may have more prudence
to advise, than a privy counsellor; and a prince more power to
act, than wisdom to conduct. A pilot may direct though he
be lame, and cannot climb the masts and spread the sails. But
God is wanting in nothing; neither in wisdom to design, nor
in will to determine, nor in power to accomplish. His wisdom
is not feeble, nor his power foolish; a powerful wisdom could
not act what it would, and a foolish power would act more
than it should. The power expressed in his government, is
shadowed forth in the living creatures, which are God's instru-
ments in it. It is said, every one of them had four faces; that
of a man to signify wisdom; of a lion, eagle, the strongest among
birds, to signify their courage and strength to perform their
offices, Ezek. i. 6. 10.

This power is evident in the natural, moral, gracious gov-
ernment.

' Peirs, p. 111. 2 Suarez. lib. 3. cap. 10.

52 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

There is a natural providence, which consists in the preser-
vation of all things, propagation of them by corruptions and
generations, and in a co-operation with them in their motions
to attain their ends.

Moral government is of the hearts and actions of men.

Gracious government, as respecting the church.

[1.] His power is evident in natural government.

In preservation. God is the great Father of the world, to
nourish it as well as create it.1 Man and beast would perish,
if there were not herbs for their food: and herbs would wither
and perish, if the earth were not watered with fruitful showers.
This some of the heathens acknowledged, in their worshipping
God under the image of an ox, a useful creature, by reason of
its strength, to which we owe so much of our food in corn.
Hence God is styled the Preserver of man and beast, Psal.
xxxvi. 6. Hence the Jews called God, Place; because he is
the subsistence of all things. By the same word whereby he
gave being to things, he gives to them continuance and dura-
tion in being to such a term of time. As they were created
by his word, they are supported by his word, Heb. i. 3. The
same powerful fiat, " Let the earth bring forth grass," Gen. i.
11, when the plants peeped upon earth out of nothing, is ex-
pressed every spring, when they begin to lift up their heads
from their naked roots and winter graves. The resurrection of
light every morning, the reviving the pleasure of all things to
the eye; the watering the valleys from the mountain springs;
the curbing the natural appetite of the waters from covering
the earth; every draught that the beasts drink, every lodging
the fowls have, every bit of food for the sustenance of man and
beast, is ascribed to the opening of his hand, the diffusing of
his power, Psal. civ. 27, 28, as much as the first creation of
things, and endowing them with their particular nature.
Whence the plants, which are so serviceable, are called the
trees of the Lord, of Jehovah, verse 16, that only has being and
power in himself. The whole psalm is but the description of
his preserving, as the first of Genesis is of his creating power.
It is by this power, angels have so many thousand years re-
mained in the power of understanding and willing. By this
power, things distant in their natures have been joined together,
a spiritual soul and a dusty body knit in a marriage knot. By
this power, the heavenly bodies have for so many ages rolled
in their spheres, and the tumultuous elements have persisted in
their order: by this has the matter of the world been to this day
continued, and as capable of entertaining forms as it was at
the first creation. What an amazing sight would it be to see
a man hold a pillar of the exchange upon one of his fingers!

i Daille, in 1 Cor. 10. p. 102.

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

53

What is this to the power of God, who holds the waters in the
hollow of his hands, metes out the heaven with a span, and
weighs the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Isa.
Xl. 12.

The preserving the earth from the violence of the sea is a
plain instance of this power.1 How is that raging element
kept pent within those lists where he first lodged it; continuing
its course in its channel without overflowing the earth, and
dashing in pieces the lower part of the creation ! The natural
situation of the water is to be above the earth, because it is
lighter; and to be immediately under the air, because it is
heavier than that thinner element. Who restrains this natural
quality of it, but that God that first formed it? The word of
command at first, Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further, keeps
those waters linked together in their den, that they may not
ravage the earth, but be useful to the inhabitants of it. And
when once it finds a gap to enter, what power of earth can
hinder its passage ? How fruitless sometimes is all the art of
man to send it to its proper channel, when once it has spread
its mighty waves over some countries, and trampled part of
the inhabited earth under its feet ! It has triumphed in its
victory, and withstood all the power of man to conquer its
force. It is only the power of God that does bridle it from
spreading itself over the whole earth. And that his power
might be more manifest, he has set but a weak and small bank
against it. Though he has bounded it in some places by
mighty rocks, which lift up their heads above it, yet in most
places by feeble sand. How often is it seen in every stormy
motion, when the waves boil high, and roll furiously, as if
they would swallow up all the neighbouring houses upon the
shore; when they come to touch those- sandy limits, they bow
their heads, fall flat, and sink into the lap whence they were
raised; and seem to foam with anger that they can march no
further, but must fall back at so weak an obstacle ! Can
the sand be thought to be the cause of this? The weakness of
it gives no footing to such a thought. Who can apprehend
that an enraged army should retire upon the opposition of a
straw in an infant's hand? Is it the nature of the water? Its
retirement is against the natural quality of it; pour but a little
upon the ground, and you always see it spread itself. No cause
can be rendered in nature; it is a standing monument of the
power of God in the preservation of the world, and ought to be
more taken notice of by us in this island, surrounded with it,
than by some other countries in the world.

We find nothing has power to preserve itself. Does not
every creature upon earth require the assistance of some other

1 Daille Melange, part 2. p. 457, &c.
Vol. II.— 8

54 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

for its maintenance? "Can the rush grow up without mire?
can the flag grow without water? Job viii. 11. Can man or
beast maintain itself without grain from the bowels of the
earth? Would not every man tumble into the grave, without
the aid of other creatures to nourish him? Whence do these
creatures receive that virtue of supplying him nourishment, but
from the sun and earth? and whence do they derive that vir-
tue, but from the Creator of all things? And should he but
slack his hand, how soon would they and all their qualities
perish, and the links of the world fall in pieces, and dash one
another into their first chaos and confusion ! All creatures
indeed have an appetite to preserve themselves, they have
some knowledge of the outward means for their preservation;
so have irrational animals a natural instinct, as well as men
have some skill to avoid things that are hurtful, and apply
things that are helpful. But what thing in the world can pre-
serve itself by an inward influx into its own being? All
things want such a power without God's fiat, Let it be so.
Nothing but is destitute of such a power for its own preserva-
tion, as much as it is of a power for its own creation. Were
there any true power for such a work, what need of so many
external helps from things of an inferior nature to that which
is preserved by them?

No created thing has a power to preserve any decayed
being. Who can lay claim to such a virtue, as to recall a
withering flower to its former beauty, to raise the head of a
drooping plant, or put life into a gasping worm when it is ex-
piring, or put impaired vitals into their former posture? Not
a man upon earth, nor an angel in heaven, can pretend to such
a virtue: they may be spectators, but not assisters, and are in
this case physicians of no value.

It is therefore the same power preserves things which at first
created them. The creature does -as much depend upon God
in the first instant of its being, for its preservation, as it did
when it was nothing, for its production and creation into
being;' as the continuance of a thought of our mind depends
upon the power of our mind, as well as the first framing of that
thought. There is as little difference between creating and
preserving power, as there is between the power of my eye to
begin an act of vision and continue that act of vision; as to
cast my eye upon an object, and continue it upon that object.
As the first act is caused by the eye, so the duration of that act
is preserved by the eye: shut the eye, and the act of vision
priishes; divert the eye from that object, and that act of vision
is exchanged for another. And therefore the preservation of
things is commonly called a continual creation: and certainly it
1 Lessius de Perfect Divin. p. 69.

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

55

is no less, if we understand it of a preservation by an inward
influence into the being of things. It is one and the same ac-
tion invariably continued, and obtaining its force every mo-
ment : the same action whereby he created them of nothing,
and which every moment has a virtue to produce a thing out
of nothing, if it were not yet extant in the world: it remains
the same without any diminution throughout the whole time
wherein any thing does remain in the world.1 For all things
would return to nothing, if God did not keep them up in the
elevation and state to which he at first raised them by his
creative power. " In him we live — and have our being," Acts
xvii. 28. By him, or by the same power whence we derived
our being, are our lives maintained. As it was his almighty
power whereby we were after we had been nothing; so it is
the same power whereby we now are, after he has made us
something.

Certainly all things have no less a dependence on God, than
light upon the sun, which vanishes and hides its head upon the
withdrawing of the sun. And should God suspend that power-
ful word, whereby he erected the frame of the world, it would
sink down to what it was, before he commanded it to stand up.
There needs no new act of power to reduce things to nothing,
but the cessation of that omnipotent influx. When the ap-
pointed time set them for their being comes to a period, they
faint and bend down their heads to their dissolution, they
return to their elements and perish: "Thou hidest thy face,
they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and
return to their dust," Psal. civ. 29. That which was nothing
cannot remain on this side nothing, but by the same power
that first called it out of nothing. As when God withdrew his
concurring power from the fire, its quality ceased to act upon
the three children; so if he withdraws his sustaining power
from the creature, its nature will cease to be.

It appears in propagation. That powerful word, increase
and multiply, Gen. i. 22. 28, pronounced at the first creation,
has spread itself over every part of the world; every animal in
the v/orld, in the formation of every one of them. From two
of a kind, how great a number of individuals and single crea-
tures have been multiplied, to cover the face of the earth in
their continued successions! What a world of plants spring up
from the womb of a dry earth, moistened by the influence of a
cloud, and hatched by the beams of the sun! How admirable
an instance of his propagating power is it, that from a little
seed a massy root should strike into the bowels of the earth, a
tall body and thick branches, with leaves and flowers of vari-
ous colours, should break through the surface of the earth, and

i Lessius de Sum. Bon. p. 580—582.

56 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

mount up towards heaven, when in the seed you neither smell
the scent nor see any firmness of a tree, nor behold any of
those colours which you view in the flowers that the years
produce! A power not to be imitated by any creature. How
astonishing is "it, that' a small seed, whereof many will not
amount to the weight of a grain, should spread itself into
leaves, bark, fruit of a vast weight, and multiply itself into
millions of seeds! What power is that, that from one man and
woman has multiplied families, and from families stocked the
world with people ! Consider the living creatures as formed in
the womb of their several kinds; every one is a wonder of
power. The psalmist instances in the forming and propaga-
tion of man, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvel-
lous are thy works," Psal. cxxxix. 14. The forming of the
parts distinctly in the womb, the bringing forth into the world
every particular member, is a roll of wonders, of power. That
so fine a structure as the body of man should be polished in
the lowest parts of the earth, as he calls the womb, ver. 15, in
so short a time, with members of a various form and useful-
ness, each labouring in their several functions. Can any man
give an exact account of the manner, how the bones do grow
in the womb? Eccles. xi. 5. It is unknown to the father, and
no less hid from the mother, and the wisest men cannot search
out the depths of it. It is one of the secret works of an omni-
potent power, secret in the manner, though open in the effect.
So that we must ascribe it to God, as Job does, "Thine hands
have made me and fashioned me together round about," Job.
x. 8. Thy hands which formed heaven, have formed every
part, every member, and wrought me like a mighty workman.
The heavens are said to be the work of God's hands, and man
is here said to be no less. The forming and propagation of
man from that earthly matter, is no less a wonder of power,
than the structure of the world from a rude and indisposed
matter. A heathen philosopher1 descants elegantly upon it;
" Dost thou understand (my son) the forming of man in the
womb; who erected that noble fabric; who carved the eyes,
the crystal windows of light, and the conductors of the body;
who bored the nostrils and ears, those loop-holes of scents and
sounds; who stretched out and knit the sinews and ligaments
for the fastening of every member; who cast the hollow veins,
the channels of blood; set and strengthened the bones, the pil-
lars and rafters of the body; who digged the pores, the sinks
to expel the filth; who made the heart, the respository of the
soul, and formed the lungs like a pipe? What mother, what
father wrought these things? No, none but the almighty God,
who made all things according to his pleasure; it is he who

1 Trismegist. in Serm. Greek in the Temple, p. 57.

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

57

propagates this noble piece from a pile of dust. Who is born
by his own advice ? who gives stature, features, sense, wit
strength, speech, but God?"

It is no less a wonder, that a little infant can live so long in
the womb. And the eduction of it out of the womb is no less
a wonder than the forming, increase, nourishment of it in that
cell. A wonder that the life of the infant is not the death of the
mother, or the life of the mother the death of the infant. This
little creature, when it springs up from such small beginnings
by the power of God, grows up to be one of the lords of the
world, to have a dominion over the creatures, and propagates
its kind in the same manner. All this is unaccountable with-
out having recourse to the power of God in the government of
the creatures.

And to add to this wonder, consider also what multitudes of
formations and births there are at one time all over the world, in
every one of which the finger of God is at work; and it will speak
an unwearied power. It is admirable in one man, more in a
town of men, still more in a greater and larger kingdom, a vaster
world; there is a birth for every hour in this city, were but one
hundred and sixty eight born in a week, though the weekly
bills mention more. What is this city to three kingdoms; what
three kingdoms to a populous world? Eleven thousand and
eighty will make one for every minute in the week? what is
this to the weekly propagation in all the nations of the universe,
besides the generation of all the living creatures in that space,
which are the works of God's fingers as well as man? What
will be the result of this, but the notion of an inconceivable, un-
wearied almightiness, always active, always operating?

This power appears in the motions of all creatures. All
things live and move in him, Actsxvii. 2S; by the same power
that creatures have their beings, they have their motions. They
have not only a being by his powerful command, but they have
their every motion by his powerful concurrence. Notbing can
act without the almighty influx of God, no more than it can
exist without the creative word of God. It is true indeed, the
ordering of all motions to his holy ends is an act of wisdom: but
the motion itself, whereby those ends are attained, is a work of
his power.

God as the first cause has an influence into the motions of all
second causes; as all the wheels in a clock are moved in their
different motions by the force and strength of the principal and
primary wheel; if there be any defect in that, or if that stand
still, all the rest languish and stand still the same moment. All
creatures are his instruments, his engines, and have no spirit,
but what he gives, and what he assists. Whatsoever nature
works, God works in nature; nature is the instrument, God is

58 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

the supporter, director, mover of nature : that what the prophet
says in another case, may be the language of universal nature,
"Lord — thou hast wrought all our works in us," Isa. xxvi. 12.
They are our works subjectively, efficiently, as second causes;
God's works originally, concurrently. The sun moved not in
the valley of Ajalon for the space of many hours, in time of
Joshua, Josh. x. 13; nor did the fire exercise its consuming
quality upon the three children, in Nebuchadnezzar's furnace,
Dan. iii. 25: he withdrew not his supporting power from their be-
ing, for then they had vanished, but his influencing power from
their qualities, whereby their motion ceased, till he returned his
influential concurrence to them; which evidences, that without
a perpetual derivation of Divine power, the sun could not run
one stride or inch of its race, nor the fire devour one grain of
light chaff" or an inch of straw. Nothing without his sustaining
power can continue in being; nothing without his co- working
power can exercise one mite of those qualities it is possessed of.
All creatures are wound up by him, and his hand is constantly
upon them, to keep them in perpetual motion.

Consider the variety of motions in a single creature. How
many motions are there in the vital parts of a man, or in any
other animal, which a man knows not, and is unable to number!
the renewed motion of the lungs ; the systole and diastole of the
heart; the contractions and dilatations of the heart, whereby it
spouts out and takes in blood; the power of concoction in the
stomach; the motion of the blood in the veins, &c. All which
were not only settled by the powerful hand of God, but are
upheld by the same, preserved and influenced in every distinct
motion by that power that stamped them with that nature. To
every one of those there is not only the sustaining power of
God holding up their natures, but the motive power of God con-
curring to every motion; for if we move in him as well as we
live in him, then every particle of our motion is exercised by his
concurring power, as well as every moment of our life supported
by his preserving power. What an infinite variety of motions
is there in the whole world in universal nature, to all which
God concurs, all which he conducts, even the motions of the
meanest as well as the greatest creatures! Which demonstrates
the indefatigable power of the Governor. It is an infinite power
which does act in so many varieties, whereby the soul forms
every thought, the tongue speaks every word, the body exerts
every action. What an infinite power is that which presides
over the birth of all things, concurs with the motion of the sap
in the tree, rivers on the earth, clouds in the air, every drop of
rain, fleece of snow, crack of thunder! Not the least motion in
the world, but is under an actual influence of this Almighty
Mover.

ON THE POWER OF GOD. 59

And lest any should scruple the concurrence of God to so
many varieties of the creatures' motion, as a thing utterly in-
conceivable, let them consider the sun, a natural image and
shadow of the perfections of God. Does not the power of that
finite creature extend itself to various objects at the same mo-
ment of time? How many insects does it animate, as flies, &c.
at the same moment throughout the world! How many seve-
ral plants does it erect at its appearance in the spring, whose
roots lay mourning in the earth all the foregoing winter! What
multitudes of spires of grass, and nobler flowers, does it bring
forth in the same hour! It warms the air, melts the blood,
cherishes living creatures of various kinds, in distinct places,
without tiring: and shall the God of this sun be less than his
creature?

And since I speak of the sun, consider the power of God in
the motion of it. The vastness of the sun is computed to be
at the least a hundred and sixty-six times bigger than the earth,
and its distance from the earth some tell us to be about four
millions of miles;1 whence it follows, that it is whirled about
the world with that swiftness, that in the space of an hour it
runs a million of miles, which is as much as if it should move
round about the surface of the earth fifty times in one hour;
which vastness exceeds the swiftness of a bullet shot out of a
cannon, which is computed to fly not above three miles in a
minute. So that the sun runs further in one hour's space than
a bullet can in five thousand, if it were kept in motion; so that
if it were near the earth, the swiftness of its motion would
shatter the whole frame of the world, and dash it in pieces; so
that the Psalmist may well say, It runs a race like a strong
man, Psal. xix. 5. What an incomprehensible power is that
which has communicated such a strength and swiftness to the
sun, and does daily influence its motion; especially since after
all those years of its motion, wherein one would think it should
have spent itself, we behold it every day as vigorous as Adam
did in paradise, without limping, without shattering itself, or
losing any thing of its natural spirits in its unwearied motion.
How great must that power be, which has kept this great body
so entire, and thus swiftly moves it every day!

Is it not now an argument of omnipotency to keep all the
strings of nature in tune; to wind them up to a due pitch for
the harmony he intended by them; to keep things that are con-
trary from that confusion they would naturally fall into; to
prevent those jarrings which would naturally result from their
various and snarling qualities; to preserve every being in its
true nature; to propagate every kind of creature; order all the

1 A Lapide. in 1 cap. Gen. 16. Lessius, de Perfect. Divin. p. 90, 91. Lessius,
de Providen. p 633. Voss. de Idol. lib. 2. cap. 2.

QQ ON THE POWER OF GOD.

operations, even the meanest of them, when there are such in-
numerable varieties?

But let us consider that this power of preserving things in
their station and motion, and the renewing of them, is more
stupendous than that which we commonly call miraculous.

We call those miracles which are wrought out of the track
of nature, and contrary to the usual stream and current of it;
which men wonder at, because they seldom see them, and hear
of them as things rarely brought forth in the world; when the
truth is, there is more of power expressed in the ordinary sta-
tion and motion of natural causes than in those extraordinary
exertions of power. Is not more power signalized in that
whirling motion of the sun every hour for so many ages, than
in the suspending of its motion one day, as it was in the days
of Joshua? that fire should continually ravage and consume, and
greedily swallow up every thing that is offered to it, seems to
be the effect of as admirable a power as the stopping of its ap-
petite a few moments, as in the case of the three children? Is
not the rising of some small seeds from the ground, with a
multiplication of their numerous posterity, an effect of as great
a power as our Saviour's feeding many thousands with a few
loaves, by a secret augmentation of them?1 Is not the chemical
producing so pleasant and delicious a fruit as the grape from a
dry earth, insipid rain, and a sour vine, as admirable a token of
Divine power as our Saviour's turning water into wine? Is not
the cure of diseases by the application of a simple inconsider-
able weed, or a slight infusion, as wonderful in itself as the
cure of it by a powerful word? What if it be naturally design-
ed to heal, what is that nature, who gave that nature, who
maintains that nature, who conducts it, co-operates with it?
Does it work of itself, and by its own strength? why not then
equally in all, in one as well as another? Miracles indeed affect
more, because they testify the immediate operation of God
without the concurrence of second cause; not that there is more
of the power of God shining in them than in the other.

[2.] This power is evident in moral government.

In the restraint of the malicious nature of the devil.
Since Satan has the power of an angel, and the malice of a
devil, what safety would there be for our persons from destruc-
tion, what security for our goods from rifling, by this invisible,
potent, and envious spirit, if his power were not restrained and
his malice curbed, by one more mighty than himself? How
much does he envy God the glory of his creation, and man the
use and benefit of it ! How desirous would he be in regard of
his passion, how able in regard of his strength and subtlety, to
overthrow or infect all worship but what was directed to him-

1 Faucher, sur Act. vol. 2. p. 47.

ON THE POWER OF GOD. gj

self, to manage all things according to his lusts, turn all things
topsy-turvy, plague the world, burn cities, houses, plunder us
of the supports of nature, waste kingdoms, &c. if he were not
held in a chain, as a ravenous lion, or a furious wild horse, by
the Creator and Governor of the world! What remedy could
be used by man against the activity of this unseen and swift
spirit ? The world could not subsist under his malice ; he would
practise the same things upon all, as he did upon Job, when he
had got leave from his Governor; turn the swords of men into
one another's bowels; send fire from heaven upon the fruits of
the earth and the cattle, intended for the use of man; raise
winds, to shake and tear our houses upon our heads ; plague
our bodies with scabs and boils, and let all the humours in our
blood loose upon us. He that envied Adam a paradise, does
envy us the pleasure of enjoying its outworks. If we were
not destroyed by him, we should live in a continued vexation
by spectra and apparitions, affrighting sounds and noise; as
some think the Egyptians did in that three days' darkness.
He would be always winnowing us, as he desired to winnow
Peter, Luke xxii. 31. But God over-masters his strength, that
he cannot move a hairs' breadth beyond his tether: not only is
he unable to touch an upright Job, but to lay his fingers upon
one of the unbelieving Gadarenes' forbidden and filthy swine
without speeial licence, Matt. viii. 31. When he is cast out of
one place, he walks through dry places seeking rest, Luke xi.
24, new objects";for his malicious designs; but finding none, till
God lets loose the reins upon him for a new employment.
Though Satan's power be great, yet God suffers him not to
tempt as much'as his diabolical appetite would, but as much as
Divine wisdom thinks fit. And the Divine power tempers the
other's active malice, and gives the creature victory, where the
enemy intended spoil and captivity. How much stronger is
God than all the legions of hell! as he that holds a strong man
from effecting his purpose, testifies more ability than his adver-
sary, Luke xi. 22. How does he lock him up for a thousand,
years in a prison, Rev. xx. 2, from which he cannot escape!
And this restraint is wrought partly by blinding the devil in his
designs, partly by denying him concourse to his motion; as he
hindered the active quality, of the fire upon the three children,
by withdrawing his power, which was necessary to the motion
of it; and his poweris as necessary for the motion of the devil,
as for that of any other creature. Sometimes he makes him to
confess him against his own interest, as Apollo's oracle con-
fessed. ' And though, when the devil was cast out of the pos-
sessed person, he publicly owned Christ to be the Holy One of
God, Mark i. 24, to render him suspected by the people of

1 Cseteros deos sereos esse, &c. Grot. Verit. Rel. lib. 4.
Vol. H.— 9

(32 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

having commerce with the unclean spirits; yet this he could
not do without the leave and permission of God, that the power
of Christ in stopping his mouth and imposing silence upon him
might be evidenced: and that it reaches to the gates of hell, as
well as to the quieting of winds and waves. This is a part of
the strength, as well as the wisdom of God, that " the deceived
and the deceiver are his," Job. xii. 16; wisdom to defeat, and
power to overrule his most malicious designs to his own glory.
In the restraint of the natural corruption of men. Since
the impetus of original corruptions in the blood, conveyed down
from Adam to the veins of all his posterity, and universally dif-
fused in ail mankind, what wreck and havoc would it make in
the world, if it were not suppressed by this Divine power, which
presides over the hearts of men ! Man is so wretched by nature,
that nothing but what is vile and pernicious can drop from him.
Man drinks iniquity like water, being by nature abominable
and filthy, Job xv. 16. He greedily swallows all matter for
iniquity, every thing suitable to the mire and poison in his na-
ture, and would cast it out with all fierceness and insolence.
God himself gives us the description of man's nature, Gen. vi.
5, that he has not one good imagination at any time. And the
apostle from the psalmist dilates and comments upon it, Rom.
iii. 10, &c. " There is none righteous, no not one; their mouth
is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed
blood," &c. This corruption is equal to all, natural to all; it is
not more poisonous or more fierce in one man, than in another.
The root of all men is the same; all the branches therefore do
equally possess the villanous nature of the root. No child of
Adam can by natural descent be better than Adam, or have
less of baseness, and vileness, and venom than Adam. How
fruitful would this loathsome lake be in all kinds of streams!
What unbridled licentiousness and head-strong fury would
triumph in the world, if the power of God did not interpose
itself to lock down the flood-gates of it! What rooting up of
human society would there be! How would the world be
drenched in blood, the number of malefactors be greater than
that of apprehenders and punishers! How would the prints of
natural laws be razed out of the heart, if God should leave hu-
man nature to itself! Who can read the first chapter to the
Romans, ver. 24 — 31, without acknowledging this truth; where
there is a catalogue of those villanies which followed upon
God's pulling up the sluices, and letting the malignity of their
inward corruption have its natural course ? If God did not hold
back the fury of man, his garden would be overrun, his vine
rooted up; the inclinations of men would hurry them to the
worst of wickedness. How great is that power, that curbs,
bridles, or changes as many headstrong horses at once and

ON THE POWER OF GOD. (33

every minute, as there are sons of Adam upon the earth ! " The
floods lift up their waves: the Lord on high is mightier than
the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the
sea," Psah xciii. 3, 4: that does hush and pen in the turbulent
passions of men.

In the ordering and framing the hearts of men to his oivn
ends. That must he an omnipotent hand that grasps and con-
tains the hearts of all men; the heart of the meanest person, as
well as of the most towering angel; and turns them as he
pleases, and makes them sometimes ignorantly, sometimes
knowingly, concur to the accomplishment of his own purposes.
When the hearts of men are so numerous, their thoughts so
various and different from one another, yet he has a key to
those millions of hearts, and with infinite power, guided by as
infinite wisdom, he draws them into what channels he pleases
for the gaining his own ends. Though the Jews had embrued
their hands in the blood of our Saviour, and their rage was yet
reeking hot against his followers, God bridled their fury in the
church's infancy, till it had got some strength, and cast a terror
upon them by the wonders wrought by the apostles: " And
fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were
done by the apostles," Acts ii. 43. Was there not the same
reason in the nature of the works our Saviour wrought to point
them to the finger of God and calm their rage? Yet the power
of God did not work upon their passions in those miracles, nor
stop the impetuousnessof the corruption resident in their hearts.
Yet now those who had the boldness to attack the Son of God,
and nail him to the cross, are frightened at the appearance of
twelve unarmed apostles; as the sea seems to be afraid when
it approaches the bounds of the feeble sand. How did God
bend the hearts of the Egyptians to the Israelites, and turn
them to that point as to lend their most costly vessels, their
precious jewels, and rich garments, to supply those whom they
had just before tyrannically loaded with their chains! Exod.
iii. 21, 22. When a great part of an army came upon Jehos-
haphat to despatch him into another world, how does God in a
trice touch their hearts, and move them by a secret instinct at
once to depart from him! 2 Chron. xviii. 31. As if you should
see a numerous flight of birds in a moment turn wing another
way, by a sudden and joint consent. When he gave Saul a
kingdom, he gave him a spirit fit for government, and gave
him another heart, 1 Sam. x. 9; and brought the people to sub-
mit to his yoke, who a little before wandered about the land
upon no nobler employment than the seeking of asses. It is
no small remark of the power of God, to make a number of
strong and discontented persons, and desirous enough of liber-
ty, to bend their necks under the yoke of government, and sub-

g4 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

mit to the authority of one, and that of their own nature, often
weaker and more unwise than the most of them; and, many-
times, an oppressor and invader of their rights. Upon this ac-
count David calls God his fortress, tower, shield, Psal. cxliv.
2; all terms of strength, in subduing the people under him. It
is the mighty hand of God, that links princes and people toge-
ther in the bands of government. The same hand that assuages
the waves of the sea, suppresses the tumults of the people.

[3.] His power appears in his gracious and judicial govern-
ment.

In his gracious government. In the deliverance of his
church: he is the Strength of Israel, 1 Sam. xv. 29; and has
protected his little flock in the midst of wolves; and maintained
their standing, when the strongest kingdoms have sunk, and
the best jointed states have been broken in pieces; when judg-
ments have ravaged countries and torn up the mighty; as a
tempestuous wind has often done the tallest trees, which seem-
ed to threaten heaven with their tops, and dare the storm with
the depth of their roots, when yet the vine and rose-bushes
have stood firm, and been seen in their beauty next morning.
The state of the church has outlived the most flourishing mo-
narchies. When there has been a mighty knot of adversaries
against her; when the bulls of Bashan have pushed her, and
the whole tribe of the dragon have sharpened their weapons
and edged their malice; when the voice was strong, and the
hopes high to raze her foundation even with the ground; when
hell has roared; when the wit of the world has contrived, and
the strength of the world has attempted her ruin; when de-
crees have been past against her, and the powers of the world
armed for the execution of them; when her friends have
drooped and skulked into corners; when there was no eye to
pity, and no hand to assist — help has come from heaven; her
enemies have been defeated, kings have brought gifts to her
and reared her; tears have been wiped off her cheeks; and
her very enemies, by an unseen power, have been forced to
court her, whom before they would have devoured. The
devil and his armies have sneaked into their den, and the
church has triumphed when she has been upon the brink of
the grave. Thus did God send a mighty angel to be the exe-
cutioner of Sennacherib's army, and the protector of Jerusalem,
who ran his sword into the hearts of a hundred and eighty-five
thousand, 2 Kings xix. 35, when they were ready to swallow
up his beloved city.

When the knife was at the throats of the Jews in Shushan,
by a powerful hand it was turned into the hearts of their ene-
mies, Esther viii. With what outstretched arm were the
Israelites freed from the Egyptian yoke! Deut. iv. 34. When

ON THE POWER OF GOD. 55

Pharaoh had mustered a great army to pursue them, assisted
with six hundred chariots of war, the Red sea obstructed their
passage before, and an enraged enemy trod on their rear;
when the fearful Israelites despaired of deliverance, and the
insolent Egyptian assured himself of his revenge, God stretches
out his irresistible arm, to defeat the enemy and assist his peo-
ple; he strikes down the wolves, and preserves the flock.
God restrained the Egyptian enmity against the Israelites till
they were at the brink of the Red sea, and then lets them fol-
low their humour and pursue the fugitives, that his power
might more gloriously shine forth in the deliverance of the one,
and the destruction of the other. God might have brought
Israel out of Egypt in the time of those kings that had remem-
bered the good service of Joseph to their country ; but he leaves
them till the reign of a cruel tyrant, suffers them to be slaves,
that they might by his sole power be conquerors; which had
had no appearance, had there been a willing dismission of
them at the first summons. " In very deed for this cause have
I raised thee up, for to show in thee my power, and that my
name may be declared throughout all the earth," Exod. ix.
16. I have permitted thee to rise up against my people, and
keep them in captivity, that thou mightest be an occasion for
the manifestation of my power in their rescue; and whilst thou
art obstinate to enslave them, I will stretch out my arm to de-
liver them, and make my name famous among the gentiles, in the
wreck of thee and thy host in the Red sea. The deliverance
of the church has not been in one age or in one part of the
world, but God has signalized his power in all kingdoms where
she has had a footing. As he has guided her in all places by
one rule, animated her by one spirit, so he has protected her
by the same arm of power.

When the Roman emperors bandied all their force against
her for about three hundred years, they were further from
effecting her ruin at the end, than when they first attempted it;
the church grew under their sword, and was hatched under the
wings of the Roman eagle, which were spread to destroy her.
The ark was elevated by the deluge; and the waters the devil
poured out to drown her, did but slime the earth for a new
increase of her. She has sometimes been beaten down, and,
like Lazarus, has seemed to lie in the grave for some days, that
the power of God might be more visible in her sudden resur-
rection, and lifting up her head above the throne of her perse-
cutors.

In his judicial proceedings. The deluge was no small tes-
timony of his power, in opening the cisterns of heaven, and
pulling up the sluices of the sea. He but calls for the waters
of the sea, and they pour themselves upon the face of the earth,

(3(j ON THE POWER OF GOD.

Amos ix. 6. In forty days' time, the waters overtopped the
highest mountains fifteen cubits, Gen. vii. 17. 19, 20; and by
the same power he afterwards reduced the sea to its proper
channel, as a roaring lion into his den. A shower of fire from
heaven upon Sodom and the cities of the plain, was a signal
display of his power, either in creating it on the sudden for the
execution of his righteous sentence, or sending down the ele-
ment of fire, contrary to its nature, (which affects ascent,) for
the punishment of rebels against the light of nature.

How often has he ruined the most flourishing monarchies,
led princes away spoiled, and overthrown the mighty! which
Job makes an argument of his strength, Job xii. 13, 14.
Troops of unknown people, the Goths and Vandals, broke the
Romans, a warlike people, and hurled down all before them.
They could not have had the thought to succeed in such an
attempt, unless God had given them strength and motion, for
the executing his judicial vengeance upon the people of his
wrath.

How did he evidence his power by defiling the throne of
Pharoah, and his chamber of presence, as well as the houses
of his subjects, with the slime of frogs, Exod. viii. 3; turning
their waters into blood, ch. vii. 20, and their dust into biting
lice; raising his militia of locusts against them; causing a three
days' darkness without stopping the motion of the sun; taking
off their first-born, the excellency of their strength, in a night,
by the stroke of the angel's sword! He takes off the chariot-
wheels of Pharoah, and presents him with a destruction where
he expected a victory; brings those waves over the heads of
him and his host, which stood firm as marble walls for the
safety of his people: the sea is made to swallow them up, that
durst not, by the order of their Governor, touch the Israelites.
It only sprinkled the one as a type of baptism, but drowned
the other as an image of hell. Thus he made it both a deliv-
erer and a revenger, the instrument of an offensive and defen-
sive war. He brings princes to nothing, and makes the judges
of the earth as vanity, Isa. xl. 23. Great monarchs have by his
power been hurled from their thrones, and their sceptres (like
Venice glasses) broken before their faces, and they been ad-
vanced, that have had the least hopes of grandeur. He has
plucked up cedars by the roots, lopped ofY the branches, and set
a shrub to grow up in the place; dissolved rocks and established
bubbles. " He hath showed strength with his arm; he hath
scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts; he hath
put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low
degree," Luke i. 52.

And in these things also he magnifies his power:

By ordering the nature of creatures as he pleases. By re-

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

67

straining their force, or guiding their motions. The restraint
of the destructive qualities of the creatures argues as great a
power, as the change of their natures, yea, and a greater. The
qualities of creatures may be changed by art and composition,
as in the preparing of medicines-, but what but a Divine power
could restrain the operation of the fire from the three children,
while it retained its heat and burning quality in Nebuchadnez-
zar's furnace? The operation was curbed, while its nature
was preserved. All creatures are called his host, because he
marshals and ranks them as an army to serve his purposes: the
whole scheme of nature is ready to favour men when God
orders it, and ready to punish men when God commissions it.
He gave the Red sea but a cheek, and it obeyed his voice: " He
rebuked the Red sea also, and it was dried up," Psal. cvi. 9;
the motion of it ceased, and the waters of it were ranged as
defensive walls, to secure the march of his people. And at the
motion of the hand of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the sea
recovered its violence, and the walls that were framed came
tumbling down upon the Egyptians' heads, Exod. xiv. 27. The
Creator of nature is not led by the necessity of nature: he that
settled the order of nature, can change or restrain the order of
nature according to his sovereign pleasure. The most neces-
sary and useful creatures he can use as instruments of his
vengeance. Water is necessary to cleanse, and by that he can
deface a world; fire is necessary to warm, and by that he can
burn a Sodom. From the water he formed the fowl, Gen. i. 21,
and by that he dissolves them in the deluge; fire or heat is
necessary to the generation of creatures, and by that he ruins
the cities of the plain. He orders all as he pleases, to perform
every tittle and punctilio of his purpose. The sea observed
him so exactly, that it drowned not one Israelite, nor saved one
Egyptian: "There was not one of them left," Psal. cvi. 11.
And to perfect the Israelites' deliverance, he followed them
with testimonies of his power above the strength of nature.
When they wanted drink, he orders Moses to strike a rock, and
the rock spouts a river, and a channel is formed for it to attend
them in their journey. When they wanted bread, he dressed
manna for them in the heavens, and sent it to their tables in the
desert. When he would declare his strength, he calls to the
heavens to pour down righteousness, and to the earth to bring
forth salvation, Isa. xlv. 8. Though God had created righ-
teousness or deliverance for the Jews in Babylon, yet he calls
to the heavens and the earth to be assistant in the design of
Cyrus, whom he had raised for that purpose, as he speaks in
the beginning of the chapter, ver. 1 — 4. As God created man
for a supernatural end, and all creatures for man as their im-
mediate end; so he makes them, according to opportunities,

(58 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

subservient to that supernatural end of man for which he cre-
ated him. He that spans the heavens with his fist, can shoot
all creatures, like an arrow, to li it what mark he pleases. He
that spread the heavens and the earth by a word, and can by a
word fold them up more easily than a man can a garment, Heb.
i. 12, can order the streams of nature. Cannot he work with-
out nature as well as with it, beyond nature, contrary to nature,
that can (as it were) fillip nature with his finger into that noth-
ing whence he drew it; who can cast down the sun from his
throne, clap the distinguished parts of the world together, and
make them march in the same order to their confusion, as they
did in their creation; who can jumble the whole frame together,
and by a word dissolve the pillars of the world, to make the
fabric lie in a ruinous heap?

In effecting his purposes by small means: in making use of
the meanest creatures. As the power of God is seen in the
creation of the smallest creatures, and assembling so many per-
fections in the little body of an insect, as an ant, or spider; so
his power is not less magnified in the use he makes of them.
As he magnifies his wisdom by using ignorant instruments;
so he exalts his power by employing weak instruments in his
service. The meanness and imperfection of the matter sets off
the excellency of the workman ; so the weakness of the instru-
ment is a foil to the power of the principal agent. When God
has effected things by means in the Scripture, he has usually
brought about his purposes by weak instruments.

Moses, a fugitive from Egypt, and Aaron, a captive in it, are
the instruments of the Israelites' deliverance. By the motion
of Moses's rod, he works wonders in the court of Pharaoh, and
summons up his judgments against him. He brought down
Pharaoh's stomach for a while by a squadron of lice and
locusts, wherein Divine power was more seen, than if Moses
had brought him to his own articles by a multitude of warlike
troops. The fall of the walls of Jericho by the sound of rams'
horns, Josh. vi. 20, was a more glorious character of God's
power, than if Joshua had battered it down with a hundred of
warlike engines. Thus the great army of the Midianites, which
lay as grasshoppers upon the ground, were routed by Gideon
at the head of three hundred men; and Goliath a giant, laid
level with the ground by David a stripling, by the force of a
sling; a thousand Philistines despatched out of the world by
the jaw-bone of an ass in the hand of Samson. He can master
a stout nation by an army of locusts, and render the teeth of
those little insects as destructive as the teeth, yea, the strongest
teeth, the cheek-teeth of a great lion, Joel i. 6, 7. The thunder-
bolt, which produces sometimes dreadful effects, is compacted
of little atoms which fly in the air, small vapours drawn up by

ON THE POWER OF GOD. gg

the sun, and mixed with other sulphurous matter and petrify-
ing juice. Nothing is so weak, but his strength can make vic-
torious; nothing so small, but by his power he can accomplish
his great ends by it; nothing so vile, but his might can conduct
to his glory; and no nation so mighty, but he can waste and
enfeeble by the meanest creatures. God is great in power in
the greatest things, and not little in the smallest; his power in
the minutest creatures which he uses for his service, surmounts
the force of our understanding.

(3.) The power of God appears in redemption. As our Sa-
viour is called the Wisdom of God, so he is called the Power
of God, 1 Cor. i. 24. The arm of power was lifted up as high
as the designs of wisdom were laid deep. As this way of re-
demption could not be contrived but by an infinite wisdom, so
it could not be accomplished but by an infinite power. None
but God could shape such a design, and none but God could
etfect it. The Divine power in temporal deliverances, and free-
dom from the slavery of human oppressors, veils to that which
glitters in redemption; whereby the devil is defeated in his de-
signs, stripped of his spoils, and yoked in his strength. The
power of God in creation requires not those degrees of admi-
ration as in redemption. In creation the world was erected
from nothing; as there was nothing to-act, so there was nothing
to oppose; no victorious devil was in that to be subdued, no
thundering law to be silenced, no death to be conquered, no
transgression to be pardoned and rooted out, no hell to be shut,
no ignominious death upon the cross to be suffered. It had
been in the nature of the thing, an easier thing to Divine power
to have created a new world, than repaired a broken, and puri-
fied a polluted one. This is the most admirable work that ever
God brought forth in the world, greater than all the marks of
his power in the first creation.

And this will appear,

In the Person redeeming. — In the publication and propaga-
tion of the doctrine of redemption. — In the application of re-
demption.

[1.] In the Person redeeming.

In his conception.

He was conceived by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the
virgin: " The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power
of the Highest shall overshadow thee," Luke i. 35. Which
act is expressed to be the effect of the infinite power of God;
and it expresses the supernatural manner of the forming the
humanity of our Saviour, and signifies not the Divine nature
of Christ infusing itself into the womb of the virgin; for the
angel refers it to the manner of the operation of the Holy Ghost
in the producing the human nature of Christ, and not to the
Vol. II.— 10

70 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

nature assuming that humanity into union with itself. The
Holy Ghost, or the third Person in the Trinity, overshadowed
the virgin, and by a creative act framed the humanity of Christ,
and united it to the Divinity. It is therefore expressed by a
word of the same import with that used in Gen. i. 2. "The
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," which sig-
nifies (as it were) a brooding upon the chaos, shadowing it
with his wings, as hens sit upon their eggs to form them and
hatcli them into animals; or else it is an allusion to the cloud
which covered the tent of the congregation, when the glory of the
Lord filled the tabernacle, Exod. xl. 34. It was not such a crea-
tive act as we call immediate, which is a production out of no-
thing; but a mediate creation, such as God's bringing things into
form out of the first matter, which had nothing but an obediential
or passive disposition to whatsoever stamp the powerful wis-
dom of God should imprint upon it. So the substance of the
virgin had no active, but only a passive disposition to this work.
The matter of the body was earthy, the substance of the vir-
gin; the forming of it was heavenly, the Holy Ghost working
upon that matter. And therefore when it is said that " she
was found with child of the Holy Ghost," Matt. i. 18; it is to
be understood of the efficacy of the Holy Ghost, not of the
substance of the Holy Ghost. The matter was natural, but
the manner of conceiving was in a supernatural way, above
the methods of nature. In reference to the active principle,
the Redeemer is called in the prophecy, "the branch of the
Lord," Isa. iv. 2, in regard of the Divine hand that planted
him; in respect to the passive principle, "the fruit of the earth,"
in regard of the womb that bare him, and therefore said to be
made of a woman, Gal. iv. 4. That part of the flesh of the
virgin whereof the human nature of Christ was made, was
refined and purified from corruption by the overshadowing of
the Holy Ghost, as a skilful workman separates the dross from
the gold ; our Saviour is therefore called that holy thing, Luke
i. 3.5, though born of the virgin: he was necessarily some way
to descend from Adam. God indeed might have created his
body out of nothing, or have formed it (as he did Adam's) out
of the dust of the ground; but had he been thus extraordina-
rily formed, and not propagated from Adam, though he had
been a man like one of us, yet he would not have been of kin
to us, because it would not have been a nature derived from
Adam, the common parent of us all. It was therefore neces-
sary to an affinity with us, not only that he should have the
same humanjiature, but that it should flow from the same prin-
ciple, and be propagated to him.' But now, by this way of
producing the humanity of Christ of the substance of the vir-

1 Amyrald. in Symbol, p. 103, &c.

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

71

gin, he was in Adam (say some) corporeally, but not seminal-
ly ; of the substance of Adam, or a daughter of Adam, but not
of the seed of Adam: and so he is of the same nature that had
sinned, and so what he did and suffered may be imputed to us;
which, had he been created as Adam, could not be claimed in
a legal and judicial way.

It was not convenient he should be born in the common
order of nature, of father and mother. For whosoever is so
born is polluted; a clean thing cannot be brought out of an
unclean, Job. xiv. 4. And our Saviour had been incapable of
being a Redeemer, had he been tainted with the least spot of
our nature, but would have stood in need of redemption him-
self. Besides, it had been inconsistent with the holiness of the
Divine nature, to have assumed a tainted and defiled body.
He that was the fountain of blessedness to all nations, was not
to be subject to the curse of the law for himself; which he
would have been, had he been conceived in an ordinary way.
He that was to overturn the devil's empire, was not to be any
way captive under the devil's power, as a creature under the
curse; nor could he be able to break the serpent's head, had he
been tainted with the serpent's breath.

Again, supposing that Almighty God by his Divine power
had so ordered the matter, and so perfectly sanctified an earthly
father and mother from all original spot, that the human nature
might have been transmitted immaculate to him, as well as the
Holy Ghost did purge that part of the flesh of the virgin of
which the body of Christ was made; yet it was not convenient
that that person that was God blessed for ever as well as man,
partaking of our nature, should have a conception in the same
manner as ours, but different, and in some measure conforma-
ble to the infinite dignity of his person; which could not have
been, had not a supernatural power and a Divine person been
concerned as an active principle in it. Besides, such a birth
had not been agreeable to the first promise, which calls him
the seed of the woman, Gen. iii. 15, not of the man; and so the
veracity of God had suffered some detriment. The seed of
the woman only, is set in opposition to the seed of the serpent.

By this manner of conception, the holiness of his nature is
secured, and his fitness for his office is assured to us. It is now
a pure and unpolluted humanity that is the temple and taber-
nacle of the Divinity: the fulness of the Godhead dwells in him
bodily, and dwells in him holily. His humanity is supernatu-
ralized and elevated by the activity of the Holy Ghost, trans-
forming the flesh of the virgin into man, as the chaos into a
world. Though we read of some sanctified from the womb, it
was not a pure and perfect holiness; it was like the light of
fire mixed with smoke, an infused holiness accompanied with

"72 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

a natural taint. But the holiness of the Redeemer by this con-
ception, is like the light of the sun, pure and without spot. The
Spirit of holiness supplying the place of a father in a way of
creation.

His fitness for his office is also assured to us; for being born
of the virgin, one of our nature, but conceived by the Spirit a
Divine person, the guilt of our sins may be imputed to him
because of our nature, without the stain of sin inherent in him;
because of his supernatural conception he is capable, as one of
kin to us, to bear our curse without being touched by our taint.
By this means our sinful nature is assumed without sin in that
nature which was assumed by him: flesh he has, but not sinful
flesh, Rom. viii. 3. Real flesh, but not really sinful, only by
way of imputation.

Nothing but the power of God is evident in this whole work:
by the ordinary laws and course of nature a virgin could not
bear a son; nothing but a supernatural and almighty grace
could intervene to make so holy and perfect a conjunction.
The generation of others, in an ordinary way, is by male and
female; but the virgin is overshadowed by the Spirit, and
power of the Highest.1 Man only is the product of natural
generation; this which is born of the virgin is the Holy thing,
the Son of God. In other generations a rational soul is only
united to a material body; but in this, the Divine nature is
united with the human in one person by an indissoluble union.

Another act of power in the Person redeeming, is the union
of the two natures, the Divine and human. The designing
indeed of this was an act of wisdom, but the accomplishing it
was an act of power.

There is in this redeeming Person a union of two natures.
He is God and man in one person. "Thy throne, 0 God, is
for ever and ever: — God, even thy God, hath anoinled thee
with the oil of gladness, &c. Heb. i. 8, 9. The Son is called
God, having a throne for ever and ever, and the unction speaks
him man. The Godhead cannot be anointed, nor has any fel-
lows. Humanity and Divinity are ascribed to him, Rom. i. 3,
4. He was of the seed of David according to the flesh, and
declared to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the
dead. The Divinity and humanity are both prophetically
joined, Zech. xii. 10. I will pour out my Spirit: the pouring
forth the Spirit is an act only of Divine grace and power.
" And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced:" the
same person pours forth the Spirit as God, and is pierced as
man. "The Word was made flesh," John i. 14. Word from
eternity was made flesh in time, Word and flesh in one person;
a great God, and a little infant.

1 Amyrant. sur. Tim. p. 292.

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

73

The terms of this union ivere infinitely distant. What
greater distance can there be than between the Deity and hu-
manity, between the Creator and a creature? Can you imagine
the distance between eternity and time, infinite power and mis-
erable infirmity, an immortal spirit and dying flesh, the highest
Being and nothing? yet these are espoused. A God of unmixed
blessedness is linked personally with a man of perpetual sor-
rows; life incapable of death, joined to a body in that economy
incapable of life without dying first; infinite purity, and a re-
puted sinner; eternal blessedness with a cursed nature; al-
mightiness and weakness, omniscience and ignorance, immuta-
bility and changeableness, incomprehensibleness and compre-
hensibility; that which cannot be comprehended, and that
which can be comprehended; that which is entirely independ-
ent, and that which is totally dependent; the Creator forming
all things and the creature made, met together to a personal
union; the Word made flesh, John i. 14; the eternal Son the
seed of Abraham, Heb. ii. 16. What more miraculous than
for God to become man, and man to become God? That a per-
son possessed of all the perfections of the Godhead, should in-
herit all the imperfections of the manhood in one person, sin only
excepted; a holiness incapable of sinning to be made sin; God
blessed for ever taking the properties of human nature, and hu-
man nature admitted to a union with the properties of the Crea-
tor: the fulness of the Deity and the emptiness of man united
together, Col. ii. 9; not by a shining of the Deity upon the hu-
manity's the light of the sun upon the earth, but by an inhabi-
tation or indwelling of the Deity in the humanity. Was there
not need of an infinite power to bring together terms so far
asunder, to elevate the humanity to be capable of and disposed
for a conjunction with the Deity? If a clod of earth should be
advanced to and united with the body of the sun, such an ad-
vance would evidence itself to be a work of almighty power:
the clod has nothing in its own nature to render it so glorious,
no power to climb up to so high a dignity: how little would
such a union be, to that we are speaking of! Nothing less than
an incomprehensible power could effect, what an incomprehen-
sible wisdom did project in this affair.

Especially since the union is so strait. It is not such a
union as is between a man and his house he dwells in, whence
he goes out, and to which he returns, without any alteration of
himself or his house; nor such a union as is between a man and
his garment, which both communicate and receive warmth
from one another; nor such as is between an artificer and his
instrument wherewith he works; nor such a union as one friend
has with another: all these are distant things, not one in nature,
but have distinct substances. Two friends, though united by

74 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

love, are distinct persons; a man and his clothes, an artificer and
his instruments, have distinct subsistences; but the humanity of
Christ has no subsistence but in the person of Christ.

The straitness of this union is expressed, and may be some-
what conceived, by the union of fire with iron;1 " fire pierceth
through all the parts of iron, it unites itself with every particle,
bestows a light, heat, purity upon all of it; you cannot distin-
guish the iron from the fire, or the fire from the iron, yet they
are distinct natures: so the Deity is united to the whole human-
ity, seasons it, and bestows an excellency upon it, yet the na-
tures still remain distinct. And as during that union of fire
with iron, the iron is incapable of rust or blackness; so is the hu-
manity incapable of sin : and as the operation of fire is attributed
to the red hot iron, (as the iron may be said to heat, burn, and
the fire may be said to cut and pierce,) yet the imperfections of
the iron do not affect the fire; so in this mystery, those things
which belong to the Divinity are ascribed to the humanity, and
those things which belong to the humanity are ascribed to the
Divinity, in regard of the Person in whom those natures are
united; yet the imperfections of the humanity do not hurt the
Divinity." " The Divinity of Christ is as really united with the
humanity, as the soul with the body: the Person was one, though
the natures were two, so united, that the sufferings of the hu-
man nature were the sufferings of that Person, and the dignity
of the Divine was imputed to the human, by reason of that
unity of both in one person: hence the blood of the human na-
ture is said to be the blood of God, Acts xx. 28. All things
ascribed to the Son of God, may be ascribed to this man; and
the things ascribed to this man, may be ascribed to the Son of
God, as this man is the Son of God, eternal, almighty: and it
may be said, God suffered, was crucified, &c. ; for the person of
Christ is but one, most simple; the Person suffered, that was
God and man united, making one person."

And though the union be so strait, yet without confusion of
the natures, or change of them into one another. The two
natures of Christ are not mixed, as liquors that incorporate
with one another when they are poured into a vessel; the Di-
vine nature is not turned into the human, nor the human into
the Divine; one nature does not swallow up another, and
make a third nature, distinct from each of them.2 The Deity
is not turned into the humanity, as air (which is next to a
spirit) may be thickened and turned into water, and water may
be rarefied into air by the power of heat boiling it. The Deity
cannot be changed, because the nature of it is to be unchange-
able; it would not be Deity, if it were mortal and capable of

• Lessius de. Perf. Divin. lib. 12. cap. 4. p. 104.
2 Lessius, p. 103, 104. Amyrald. Irenic. p. 284.

ON THE POWER OF GOD. 75

suffering. The humanity is not changed into the Deity, for
then Christ could not have been a sufferer; if the humanity
had been swallowed up into the Deity, it had. lost its own dis-
tinct nature, and put on the nature of the Deity, and conse-
quently been i capable of suffering: finite can never by any
mixture be changed into infinite, nor infinite into finite.

This union in this regard maybe likened to die union of
light and air, which are strictly joined ; for the light passes
through all parts of the air, but they are not confounded, but
remain in their distinct essences as before the union, without
the least confusion with one another.1 The Divine nature re-
mains as it was before the union, entire in itself; only the Di-
vine person assumes another nature to himself. The human
nature remains, as it would have done had it existed separately
from the A0'y°s, except that then it would have had a proper
subsistence by itself, which now it borrows from its union with
the Ajyoj, or Word? but that does not belong to the constitu-
tion of its nature.

Now let us consider, what a wonder of power is all this:
the knitting a noble soul to a body of clay was not so great an
exploit of almightiness, as the espousing infinite and finite to-
gether. Man is further distant from God, than man from no-
thing. What a wonder is it, that two natures infinitely distant,
should be more intimately united than any thing in the world,
and yet without any confusion ! That the same Person should
have both a glory and a grief; an infinite joy in the Deity, and
an inexpressible sorrow in the humanity; that a God upon a
throne should be an infant in a cradle, the thundering Creator
be a weeping babe and a suffering man, are such expressions
of mighty power, as well as condescending love, that they as-
tonish men upon earth, and angels in heaven.

Power was evident in {he progress of his life. In the mira-
cles he wrought: how often did he expel malicious and power-
ful devils from their habitations; hurl them from their thrones,
and make them fall from heaven like lightning ! how many
wonders were wrought by his bare word, or a single touch !
sight restored to the blind, and hearing to the deaf; palsied
members restored to the exercise of their functions; a dismissal
given to many deplorable maladies, impure leprosies chased
from the persons they had infected, and bodies beginning to
putrify raised from the grave. But the mightiest argument of
power was his patience. That he who was in his Divine na-
ture elevated above the world, should so long continue upon a
dunghill, endure the contradiction of sinners against himself, be
patiently subject to the reproaches and indignities of men,
without displaying that justice which was essential to the

1 Amyrald. Irenic. p. 282.

76 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

Deity, and in especial manner daily merited by their provoking
crimes. The patience of man under great affronts, is a greater
argument of power than the might of his arm: a strength em-
ployed in the revenge of every injury, signifies a greater in-
firmity in the soul than there can be ability in the body.

Divine power was apparent in his resurrection. The un-
locking the belly of the whale for the deliverance of Jonas, the
rescue of Daniel from the den of lions, and the restraining the
fire from burning the three children, were signal declarations of
his power, and types of the resurrection of our Saviour. But
what are those to that which was represented by them ? That
was a power over natural causes, a curbing of beasts, and re-
straining of elements; but in the resurrection of Christ, God
exercised a power over himself, and quenched the flames of his
own wrath, hotter than millions of Nebuchadnezzar's furnaces;
unlocked the prison doors, wherein the curses of the law had
lodged our Saviour, stronger than the belly and ribs of a levi-
athan. In the rescue of Daniel and Jonas, God overpowered
beasts; and in this tore up the strength of the old serpent, and
plucked the sceptre from the hand of the enemy of mankind.
The work of resurrection indeed, considered in itself, requires
the efficacy of an almighty power: neither man nor angel can
create new dispositions in a dead body, to render it capable of
lodging a spiritual soul; nor can they restore a dislodged soul,
by their own power, to such a body. The restoring a dead
body to life requires an infinite power, as well as the creation
of the world: but there was in the resurrection of Christ some-
thing more difficult than this. While he lay in the grave he
was under the curse of the law, under the execution of that
dreadful sentence, Thou shalt die the death. His resurrection
was not only the re-tying the marriage knot between his soul
and body, or the rolling the stone from the grave; but a taking
off an infinite weight, the sin of mankind, which lay upon him :
so vast a weight could not be removed without the strength of
an almighty arm. It is therefore ascribed, not to an ordinary
operation, but an operation with power, Rom. i. 4, and such a
power wherein the glory of the Father did appear. " Raised up
from the dead by the glory of the Father," Rom. vi. 4, that is, the
glorious power of God. As the eternal generation is stupen-
dous, so is his resurrection, which is called, a new-begetting of
him, Acts xiii. 33. It is a wonder of power, that the Divine
and human nature should be joined; and no less wonder, that
his person should surmount and rise up from the curse of God
under which he lay. The apostle therefore adds one expres-
sion to another, and heaps up a variety, signifying thereby that
one was not enough to represent it; exceeding greatness of
power, and working of mighty power, which he wrought in

ON THE POWER OF GOD. 77

Christ when he raised him from the dead, Eph. i. 19. It was
an hyperbole of power, the excellency of the mightiness of his
strength; the loftiness of the expressions seems to come short
of the apprehension he had of it in his soul.

[2.] This power appears in- the publication and propagation
of the doctrine of redemption.

The Divine power will appear, if you consider, — The nature
of the doctrine. — The instruments employed in it. — The means
they used to propagate it. — The success they had.

The nature of the doctrine.

It was contrary to the common received reason of the world.
The philosophers, the masters of knowledge among the gen-
tiles, had maxims of a different stamp from it. Though they
agreed in the being of a God, yet their notions of his nature
were confused and embroiled with many errors; the unity of
God was not commonly assented unto; they had multiplied
deities according to the fancies they had received from some of
a more elevated wit and refined brain than others. Though
they had some notion of mediators, yet they placed in those
seats their public benefactors; men that had been useful to the
world, or their particular countries, in imparting to them some
profitable invention. To discard those, was to charge them-
selves with ingratitude to them, from whom they had received
signal benefits, and to whose mediation, conduct, or protection,
they ascribed all the success they had been blessed with in
their several provinces; and to charge themselves with folly,
for rendering an honour and worship to them so long. Could
the doctrine of a crucified Mediator, whom they had never
seen, that had conquered no country for them, never enlarged
their territories, brought to light no new profitable invention
for the increase of their earthly welfare, as the rest had done,
be thought sufficient to balance so many of their reputed
heroes? How ignorant were they in the foundations of the
true religion! The belief of a providence was staggering; nor
had they a true prospect of the nature of virtue and vice: yet
they had a fond opinion of the strength of their own reason,
and the maxims that had been handed down to them by their
predecessors, which Paul entitles, science falsely so called,
1 Tim. vi. 20, either meant of the philosophers or the gnostics.
They presumed that they were able to measure all things by
their own reason; whence, when the apostle came to preach
the doctrine of the gospel at Athens, the great school of reason
in that age, they gave him no better a title than that of a bab-
bler, Acts xvii. 18, and openly marked him, ver. 32; a seed
gatherer,1 one that has no more brain or sense, than a fellow

1 Srt«p(WoXo'yoj.

Vol. II.— 11

7g ON THE POWER OF GOD.

that gathers up seeds that are spilt in a market, or one that has
a vain and empty sound without sense or reason, like a foolish
mountebank; so slightly did those rationalists of the world
think of the wisdom of heaven. That the Son of God should
veil himself in a mortal body, and suffer a disgraceful death in
it, were things above the ken of reason.

Besides, the world had a general disesteem of the religion of
the Jews, and were prejudiced against any thing that came from
them. Whence the Romans that used to incorporate the gods
of other conquered nations in their capital, never moved to
have the God of Israel worshipped among them. Again, they
might argue against it with much fleshly reason: " Here is a
crucified God preached by a company of mean and ignorant
persons; what reason can we have to entertain this doctrine,
since the Jews, who, (as they tell us,) had the prophecies of
him, did not acknowledge him? Surely, had there been such
predictions, they would not have crucified, but crowned their
king, and expected from him the conquest of the earth under
their power! What reason have we to entertain him, whom
his own nation, (among whom he lived, with whom he con-
versed,) so unanimously, by the vote of the rulers as well as
the rout, rejected? It was impossible to conquer minds pos-
sessed with so many errors, and applauding themselves in
their own reason, and to render them capable of receiving re-
vealed truths, without the influence of a Divine power.

It was contrary to the customs of the world. The strength
of custom in most men surmounts the strength of reason, and
men commonly are so wedded to it, that they will be sooner
divorced from any thing than the modes and patterns received
from their ancestors. The endeavouring to change customs of
an ancient standing, has begotten tumults and furious mutinies
among nations, though the change would have been much for
their advantage.

This doctrine struck at the root of the religion of the world,
and the ceremonies wherein they had been educated from their
infancy, delivered to them from their ancestors, confirmed by
the customary observance of many ages, rooted in their minds,
and established by their laws. " This fellow persuadeth men
to worship God contrary to the law," Acts xviii. 13; against
customs, to which they ascribed the happiness of their states,
and the prosperity of their people; and would put in the place
of this religion they would abolish, a new one instituted by a
man whom the Jews had condemned, and put to death upon a
cross, as an impostor, blasphemer, and seditious person.

It was a doctrine that would change the customs of the
Jews, who were intrusted with the oracles of God. It would
bury for ever their ceremonial rites, delivered to them by

ON THE POWER OF GOD. 79

Moses from that God, who had with a mighty hand brought
them out of Egypt, consecrated their law with thunders and
lightnings from Mount Sinai at the time of its publication,
backed it with severe sanctions, confirmed it by many miracles,
both in the wilderness and their Canaan, and had continued it
for so many hundred years. They could not but remember
how they had been ravaged by other nations, and judgments
sent upon them when they neglected and slighted it; and with
what great success they were followed when they valued and
observed it; and how they had abhorred the author of this new
religion, who had spoken slightly of their traditions, till they
put him to death with infamy. Was it an easy matter to
divorce them from that worship, upon which were entailed, (as
they imagined,) their peace, plenty, and glory, things of the
dearest regard with mankind? The Jews were no less devoted
to their ceremonial traditions, than the heathen were to their
vain superstitions.

This doctrine of the gospel was of that nature, that the state
of religion all over the earth must be overturned by it; the
wisdom of the Greeks must veil to it, the idolatry of the people
must stoop to it, and the profane customs of men must moulder
under the weight of it. Was it an easy matter for the pride of
nature to deny a customary wisdom, to entertain a new doc-
trine against the authority of their ancestors, to inscribe folly
upon that which had made them admired by the rest of the
world ? Nothing can be of greater esteem with men, than the
credit of their lawgivers and founders, the religion of their
fathers, and prosperity of themselves : hence the minds of men
were sharpened against it. The Greeks, the wisest nation,
slighted it as foolish ; the Jews, the religious nation, stumbled
at it, as contrary to the received interpretations of ancient pro-
phecies and carnal conceits of an earthly glory. The dimmest
eye may behold the difficulty to change custom, a second na-
ture; it is as hard as to change a wolf into a lamb, to level a
mountain, stop the course of the sun, or change the inhabitants
of Africa into the colour of Europe. Custom dips men in as
durable a dye, as nature. The difficulties of carrying it on
against the Divine religion of the Jew, and rooted customs of
the gentiles, were unconquerable by any but an almighty
power. And in this the power of God has appeared wonder-
fully.

It was contrary to the sensuality of the world, and the lusts
of the flesh. How much the gentiles were overgrown with
base and unworthy lusts at the time of the publication of the
gospel, needs no other memento than the apostle's discourse,
Rom. i. As there was no error but prevailed upon their minds,
so there was no brutish affection but was wedded to their

§() ON THE POWER OF GOD.

hearts. The doctrine proposed to them was not easy; it flat-
tered not the sense, but checked the stream of nature. It
thundered down those three great engines whereby the devil
had subdued the world to himself, the lust of the flesh, the lust
of the eye, and the pride of life; not only the most sordid
affections of the flesh, but the more refined gratifications of the
mind; it stripped nature both of devil and man; of what was
commonly esteemed great and virtuous. That which was the
root of their fame, and the satisfaction of their ambition, was
struck at by this axe of the gospel. The first article of it
ordered them to deny themselves, not to presume upon their
own worth; to lay their understandings and wills at the foot
of the cross, and resign them up to one newly crucified at Jeru-
salem. Honours and wealth were to be despised, flesh to be
tamed, the cross to be borne, enemies to be loved, revenge not
to be satisfied, blood to be spilled, and torments to be endured,
for the honour of one they never saw, nor ever before heard
of; who was preached with the circumstances of a shameful
death, enough to affright them from the entertainment. And
the report of a resurrection and glorious ascension were things
never heard of by them before, and unknown in the world,
that would not easily enter into the belief of men. The cross,
disgrace, self-denial, were only discoursed of in order to the
attainment of an invisible world, and an unseen reward, which
none of their predecessors ever returned to acquaint them with;
a patient death, contrary to the pride of nature, was published
as the way to happiness and a blessed immortality; the dearest
lusts were to be pierced to death for the honour of this new
Lord. Other religions brought wealth and honour; this struck
them off from such expectations, and presented them with no
promise of any thing in this life, but a prospect of misery, ex-
cept those inward consolations to which before they had been
utter strangers, and had never experimented. It made them
to depend not upon themselves, but upon the sole grace of
God. It decried all natural, all moral idolatry, things as dear
to men as the apple of their eyes. It despoiled them of what-
soever the mind, will, and affections of men, naturally lay claim
to, and glory in. It pulled self up by the roots, unmanned
carnal man, and debased the principle of honour and self-satis-
faction, which the world counted at that time noble and brave.
In a word, it took them off from themselves, to act like crea-
tures of God's framing; to know no more than he would admit
them, and do no more than he did command them. How dif-
ficult must it needs be to reduce men, that placed all their hap-
piness in the pleasures of this life, from their pompous idolatry
and brutish affections, to this mortifying religion! What might
the world say? Here is a doctrine will render us a company

ON THE POWER OF GOD

81

of puling animals: farewell generosity, bravery, sense of hon-
our, courage in enlarging the bounds of our country, for an
ardent charity to the bitterest of our enemies. Here is a reli-
gion will rust our swords, canker our arms, dispirit what we
have hitherto called virtue, and annihilate what has been es-
teemed worthy and comely among mankind. Must we change
conquest for suffering, the increase of our reputation for self-
denial, the natural sentiment of self-preservation for affecting
a dreadful death? How impossible was it that a crucified
Lord, and a crucifying doctrine, should be received in the
world without the mighty operation of a Divine power upon
the hearts of men! And in this also the almighty power of
God did notably shine forth.

Divine power appeared in the instruments employed for
the publishing and propagating the gospel. Who were,

Mean and worthless m themselves. Not noble and dignified
with an earthly grandeur, but of a low condition, meanly bred:
so far from any splendid estates, that they possessed nothing
but their nets; without any credit and reputation in the world;
without comeliness and strength; as unfit to subdue the world
by preaching, as an army of hares were to conquer it by war.
Not learned doctors bred up at the feet of the famous rabbins
at Jerusalem, whom Paul calls the princes of the world, 1 Cor.
ii. 8; nor nursed up in the school of Athens, under the philo-
sophers and orators of the time: not the wise men of Greece,
but the fishermen of Galilee; naturally skilled in no language
but their own, and no more exact in that than those of the
same condition in any other nation; ignorant of every thing
but the language of their lakes and their fishing trade, except
Paul, who was called some time after the rest to that employ-
ment. And after the descent of the Spirit, they were ignorant
and unlearned in every thing but the doctrine they were com-
manded to publish; for the council before whom they were
summoned, proved them to be so, which increased their won-
der at them, Acts iv. 13. Had it been published by a voice
from heaven, that twelve poor men, taking out of boats and
creeks, without any help of learning, should conquer the world
to the cross, it might have been thought an illusion against all
the reason of men; yet we know it was undertaken and accom-
plished by them. They published this doctrine in Jerusalem,
and quickly spread it over the greatest part of the world.
Folly outwitted wisdom, and weakness overpowered strength.
The conquest of the east by Alexander was not so admirable
as the enterprise of these poor men. He attempted his con-
quest with the hands of a warlike nation, though indeed but
a small number of thirty thousand against multitudes, many
hundred thousands of the enemies; yet an effeminate enemy.

82 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

Here a people inured to slaughter and victory attacked great
numbers, but enfeebled by luxury and voluptuousness. Be-
sides, he was bred up to such enterprises, had a learned educa-
tion under the best philosopher, and a military education under
the best commander, and a natural courage to animate him.
These instruments had no such advantage from nature; the
heavenly treasure was placed in those earthen vessels, as
Gideon's lamps in empty pitchers, Judg. vii. 16; that the ex-
cellency or hyperbole of the power might be of God, 2 Cor. iv.
7, and the strength of his arm be displayed in the infirmity of
the instruments. They were destitute of earthly wisdom, and
therefore despised by the Jews and derided by the gentiles;
the publishers were accounted mad-men, and the embracers
fools. Had they been men of known natural endowments,
the power of God had been veiled under the gifts of the crea-
ture.

Therefore a Divine power suddenly spirited them, and fitted
them for so great a work. Instead of ignorance they had the
knowledge of the tongues; and they that were scarce well
skilled in their own dialect, were instructed on the sudden to
speak the most flourishing languages of the world, and dis-
course to the people of several nations the great things of God,
Acts ii. 11. Though they were not enriched with any worldly
wealth, and possessed nothing, yet they were so sustained that
they wanted nothing in any place where they came, a table
was spread for them in the midst of their bitterest enemies.
Their fearful ness was turned into courage; and they that a few
days before skulked in corners for fear of the Jews, John xx.
19, speak boldly in the name of that Jesus, whom they had
seen put to death by the power of the rulers and the fury of
the people. They reproach them with the murder of their
Master, and outbrave that great people in the midst of their
temple, with the glory of that Person they had so lately cruci-
fied, Acts ii. 23; iii. 13. Peter, that was not long before alarmed
at the presence of a maid, was not daunted at the presence
of the council, that had their hands yet reeking with the blood
of his Master; but being filled with the Holy Ghost, seems to
dare the power of the priests and Jewish governors, and is as
confident in the council chamber as he had been cowardly in
the high priest's hall, Acts iv. 8, &c, the efficacy of grace tri-
umphing over the fearfulness of nature. Whence should this
ardour and zeal to propagate a doctrine that had already borne
the scars of the people's fury, be, but from a mighty power,
which changed those hares into lions, and stripped them of
their natural cowardice to clothe them with a Divine courage;
making them in a moment both wise and magnanimous, alien-
ating them from any consultations with flesh and blood? As

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83

soon as ever the Holy Ghost came upon them as a mighty-
rushing wind, they move up and down for the interest of God;
as fish, after a great clap of thunder, are roused, and move
more nimbly on the top of the water; therefore that which did
so fit them for this undertaking is called by the title of power
from on high, Luke xxiv. 49.

The Divine power appears in the means whereby it ivas
propagated.

By means different from the methods of the world. Not by
force of arms, as some religions have taken root in the world.
Mahomet's horse has trampled upon the heads of men to im-
print an alcoran in their brains, and robbed men of their goods
to plant their religion. But the apostles bore not this doctrine
through the world upon the points of their swords; they pre-
sented not a bodily death where they would bestow an immor-
tal life. They employed not troops of men in a warlike posture,
which had been possible for them after the gospel was once
spread; they had no ambition to subdue men unto themselves,
but to God; they coveted not the possessions of others; design-
ed not to enrich themselves; invaded not the rights of princes,
nor the liberties and properties of the people; they rifled them
not of their estates, nor scared them into this religion by a fear
of losing their worldly happiness. The arguments they used
would naturally drive them from an entertainment of this doc-
trine, rather than allure them to be proselytes to it: their de-
sign was to change their hearts, not their government; to wean
them from the love of the world to a love of a Redeemer; to
remove that which would ruin their souls. It was not to en-
slave them, but ransom them; they had a warfare, but not
with carnal weapons, but such as were mighty through God
for the pulling down of strong holds, 2 Cor. x. 4; they used no
weapons but the doctrine they preached. Others that have not
gained conquests by the edge of the sword and the stratagems
of war, have extended their opinions to others by the strength
of human reason, and the insinuations of eloquence. But the
apostles had as little flourish in their tongues as edge upon their
swords. Their preaching was not with the enticing words of
man's wisdom, 1 Cor. ii. 4; their presence was mean, and their
discourses without varnish; their doctrine was plain, a cruci-
fied Christ; a doctrine unlaced, ungarnished, distasteful to the
world; but they had the demonstration of the Spirit, and a
mighty power for their companion in the work. The doctrine
they preached, namely, the death, resurrection, and ascension
of Christ, are called the powers, not of this world, but of the
world to come, Heb. vi. 5. No less than a supernatural power
could conduct them in this attempt with such weak methods in
human appearance.

84 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

Against all the force, power, and wit of the world. The divi-
sions in the eastern empire, and the feeble and consuming state
of the western, contributed to Mahomet's success. ' But never
was Rome in a more flourishing condition; learning, eloquence,
wisdom, strength were at the highest pitch: never was there a
more diligent watch against any innovations; never was that
state governed by more severe and suspicious princes, than at
the time when Tiberius and Nero held the reins. No time
seemed to be more unfit for the entrance of a new doctrine than
that age, wherein it begun to be first published; never did any
religion meet with that opposition from men. Idolatry has been
often settled without any contest; but this has suffered the same
fate with the institutor of it, and endured the contradictions of
sinners against itself. And those that published it, were not
only without any worldly prop, but exposed themselves to the
hatred and fury, to the racks and tortures of the strongest powers
on earth. It never set foot in any place, but the country was
in an uproar, Acts xix. 28; swords were drawn to destroy it;
laws made to suppress it; prisons provided for the professors of
it; fires kindled to consume them; and executioners had a per-
petual employment to stifle the progress of it.

Rome in the conquest of countries changed not the religion,
rites, and modes of their worship. They altered their civil go-
vernment, but left them to the liberty of their religion, and many
times joined with them in the worship of their peculiar gods;
and sometimes imitated them at Rome, instead of abolishing
them in the cities they had subdued. But all their councils
were assembled, and their force was banded against the Lord
and against his Christ; and that city that kindly received all
manner or superstitions, hated this doctrine with an irreconcila-
ble hatred. It met with reproaches from the wise, and fury
from the potentates; it was derided by the one as the greatest
folly, and persecuted by the other as contrary to God and man-
kind; the one were afraid to lose their esteem by the doctrine,
and the other to lose their authority by a sedition they thought
a change of religion would introduce. The Romans, that had
been conquerors of the earth, feared intestine commotions, and
the falling asunder of the links of their empire. Scarce any of
their first emperors, but had their swords died red in the blood
of the Christians. The flesh with all its lusts, the world with
all its flatteries, the statesmen with all their craft, and the mighty
with all their strength, joined together to extirpate it: though
many members were taken off by the fires, yet the church not,
only lived, but flourished in the furnace. Converts were made
by the death of martyrs, and the flames which consumed their
bodies were the occasion of firing men's hearts with a zeal for

1 Daille, 15. Serin, p. 57.

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

85

the profession of it. Instead of being extinguished, the doctrine
shone more bright, and multiplied under the sickles that were
employed to cut it down: God ordered every circumstance so,
both in the persons that published it, the means whereby, and
the time when, that nothing but his power might appear in it,
without any thing to dim and darken it.

The Divine power was conspicuous in the great success it had
under all these difficulties. Multitudes were prophesied of to
embrace it ; whence the prophet Isaiah, after (he prophecy of
the death of Christ, Isa. liii., calls upon the church to enlarge
her tents, and lengthen out her cords, to receive those multitudes
of children that should call her mother; for she should break
forth on the right hand and on the left, and her seed should in-
herit the gentiles, Isa. liv. 2, 3: the idolaters and persecutors
should enlist their names in the muster-roll of the church.

Presently after the descent of the Holy Ghost from heaven
upon the apostles, you find the hearts of three thousand melted
by a plain declaration of this doctrine; who were a little before
so far from having a favourable thought of it, that some of
them at least, if not all, had expressed their rage against it, in
voting for the condemning and crucifying of the Author of it,
Acts ii. 41, 42. But in a moment they were so altered, that
they breathe out affection instead of fury; neither the respect
they had to their rulers, nor the honour they bore to their
priests, nor the derisions of the people, nor the threatening of
punishment, could stop them from owning it in the face of
multitudes of discouragements. How wonderful is it that they
should so soon, and by such small means, pay a reverence to
the servants, who had none for the Master! that they should
hear them with patience, without the same clamour against
them as against Christ, " Crucify them, crucify them !" but,
that their hearts should so suddenly be inflamed with devotion
to him dead, whom they so much abhorred when living. It
had gained footing, not in a corner of the world, but in the
most famous cities; in Jerusalem, where Christ had been cruci-
fied; in Antioch, where the name of Christians first began; in
Corinth, a place of ingenious arts; and Ephesus, the seat of a
noted idol. In less than twenty years there was not a prov;nce
of the Roman empire, and scarce any part of the known world,
but was stored with the professors of it. Rome that was the
metropolis of the idolatrous world, had multitudes of them
sprinkled in every corner, whose faith was spoken of through-
out the world, Rom. i. 8. The court of Nero, that monster of
mankind, and the most cruel and sordid tyrant that ever breath-
ed, was not empty of sincere votaries to it; there were saints
in Caesar's house, while Paul was under Nero's chain, Phil. iv.
22: and it maintained its standing, and flourished in spite of all
Vol. II.— 12

86 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

the force of hell, two hundred and fifty years before any sove-
reign prince espoused it.

The potentates of the earth had conquered the lands of men,
and subdued their bodies; these vanquished hearts and wills,
and brought the most beloved thoughts under the yoke of Christ.
So much did this doctrine overmaster the consciences of its
followers, that they rejoiced more at their yoke than others at
their liberty; and counted it more a glory to die for the honour
of it, than to live in the profession of it. Thus did our Saviour
reign and gather subjects in the midst of his enemies; in which
respect, in the first discovery of the gospel, he is described as a
mighty Conqueror, Rev. vi. 2, and still conquering in the great-
ness of his strength. How great a testimony of his power is it,
that from so small a cloud should rise so glorious a sun, that
should chase before it the darkness and power of hell, triumph
over the idolatry, superstition and profaneness of the world !
This plain doctrine vanquished the obstinacy of the Jews, baf-
fled the understanding of the Greeks, humbled the pride of the
grandees, threw the devil not only out of bodies but hearts, tore
up the foundation of his empire, and planted the cross where
the devil had for many ages before established his standard.
How much more than a human force is illustrious in this whole
conduct! Nothing in any age of the world can parallel it; it
being so much against the methods of nature, the disposition of
the world, and (considering the resistance against it) seems to
surmount even the work of creation. Never were there in any
profession such multitudes, not of bedlamites, but men of so-
briety, acutencss and wisdom, that exposed themselves to the
fury of the flames, and challenged death in the most terrifying
shapes for the honour of this doctrine.

To conclude, this should be often meditated upon to form our
understandings to a full assent to the gospel, and the truth of it;
the want of which consideration of power, and the insensibility
produced by an education in the outward profession of it, is the
ground of all the profaneness under it, and apostasy from it;
the disesteem of the truth it declares, and the neglect of the
duties it enjoins. The more we have a prospect and sense of
the impressions of Divine power in it, the more we shall have
a reverence of the Divine precepts.

[3.] The third thing is, the power of God appears in the
application of redemption, as well as in the Person redeeming,
and the publication and propagation of the doctrine of redemp-
tion.— In implanting grace. — In the pardon of sin. — In the pre-
serving of grace.

In implanting grace. There is no expression which the
Spirit of God has thought fit, in Scripture, to liken this work to,
but argues the exerting of a Divine power for the effecting of

ON THE POWR OF GOD. g^

it. When it is expressed by light, it is as much as the power
of God in creating the sun; when by regeneration, it is as much
as the power of God in forming an infant, and fashioning all
the parts of a man; when it is called resurrection, it is as much
as the rearing of the body again out of puirified matter; when
it is called creation, it is as much as erecting a comely world
out of mere nothing, or an unformed and uncomely mass. As
we could not contrive the death of Christ for our redemption,
so we cannot form our souls to the acceptation of it; the infinite
efficacy of grace is as necessary for the one, as the infinite wis-
dom of God was for laying the platform of the other.

It is by his power we have whatsoever pertains to godliness
as well as life, 2 Pet. i. 3. He puts his fingers upon the handle
of the lock, and turns the heart to what point he pleases; the
action whereby he performs this, is expressed by a word of
force, eppOaato. He has snatched us from the power of dark-
ness, Col. i. 13; the action whereby it is performed manifests
it. In reference to this power it is called creation, which is a
production from nothing; and conversion is a production from
something more incapable of that state than mere nothing is of
being. There is a greater distance between the terms of sin
and righteousness, corruption and grace, than between the
terms of nothing and being; the greater the distance is, the
more power is required to the producing any thing. As in
miracles, the miracle is the greater where the change is the
greater; and the change is the greater where the distance is
the greater; as it was a more signal mark of power to change
a dead man to life, than to change a sick man to health; so
that the change here being from a term of a greater distance,
is more powerful than the creation of heaven and earth. There-
fore, whereas creation is said to be wrought by his hands, and
the heavens by his fingers, or his word; conversion is said to
be wrought by his arm, Isa. liii. 1. In creation we had an
earthly, by conversion a heavenly state: in creation, nothing
is changed into something; in conversion, hell is transformed
into heaven, which is more than the turning nothing into
a glorious angel. In that thanksgiving of our Saviour for the
revelation of the knowledge of himself to babes, the simple of
the world, he gives the title to his Father of " Lord of heaven
and earth," Matt. xi. 25, intimating it to be an act of his cre-
ative and preserving power; that power whereby he formed
heaven and earth, has preserved them standing, and governed
the motions of all creatures from the beginning of the world.

It is likened to the most magnificent act of Divine power
that God ever put forth, namely, that in the resurrection of our
Saviour, Eph. i. 19, 20, wherein there was more than an ordi-
nary impression of might. It is not so small a power as that

gg ON THE POWER OF GOD.

whereby we speak with tongues, or whereby Christ opened
the mouths of the dumb and the ears of the deaf, or unloosed
the cords of death from a person. It is not that power where-
by our Saviour wrought those stupendous miracles when he
was in the world; but that power which wrought a miracle
that amazed the most knowing angels, as well as ignorant man.
The taking off the weight of the sin of the world from our
Saviour, and advancing him in his human nature to rule over
the angelical host, making him head of principalities and pow-
ers; as much as to say, as great as all that power which is dis-
played in our redemption, from the first foundation to the last
line in the superstructure. It is therefore often set forth with
an emphasis, as excellency of power, 2 Cor. iv. 7, and glorious
power, 2 Pet. i. 3. To glory and virtue, we translate it ; but it
is Six Sa!^, through glory and virtue, that is, by a glorious vir-
tue or strength.

Again, the instrument whereby it is wrought is dignified
with the title of power. The gospel which God uses in this
great affair, is called "The power of God to salvation," Rom.
i. 16; and, The rod of his strength, Psal. ex. 2. And the day
of the gospel's appearance in the heart, is emphatically called
The day of power, verse 3, wherein he brings down strong
holds and towering imaginations. And therefore the angel Ga-
briel, which name signifies the power of God, was always sent
upon those messages which concerned the gospel, as to Daniel,
Zacharias, Mary.1 The gospel is the power of God in a way
of instrumentality, but the almightiness of God is the principle
in a way of efficiency. The gospel is the sceptre of Christ;
but the power of Christ is the mover of that sceptre. The
gospel is not as a bare word spoken, and proposing the thing,
but as backed with a higher efficacy of grace: as the sword
does instrumentally cut, but the arm that wields it gives the
blow, and makes it successful in the stroke. But this gospel is
the power of God, because he edges this by his own power, to
surmount all resistance, and vanquish the greatest malice of
that man he designs to work upon.

The power of God is conspicuous,

In turning the heart of man against the strength of the incli-
nations of nature. In the forming of man out of the dust of
the ground, as the matter contributed nothing to the action
whereby God formed it, so it had no principle of resistance con-
trary to the design of God. But in converting the heart, there
is not only wanting a principle of assistance from him in this
work, but the whole strength of corrupt nature is alarmed to
combat against the power of his grace. When the gospel is
presented, the understanding is not only ignorant of it, but the

1 Grotius on Luke 1. 19.

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

89

will perverse against it; the one does not relish, and the other
does not esteem the excellency of the object. The carnal wis-
dom in the mind contrives against it, and the rebellions will
puts the orders in execution against the counsel of God, which
requires the invincible power of God to enlighten the dark
mind, to know what it slights, and the fierce will, to embrace
what it loathes. The stream of nature cannot be turned, but
by a power above nature: it is not all the created power in
heaven and earth can change a swine into a man, or a venom-
ous toad into a holy and illustrious angel. Yet this work is
not so great in some respects, as the stilling the fierceness of
nature, the silencing the swelling waves in the heart, and the
casting out those brutish affections which are born and grow
up with us. There would be no, or far less resistance in a
mere animal to be changed into a creature of a higher rank,
than there is in a natural man to be turned into a serious
Christian.

There is in every natural man a stoutness of heart, a stiff
neck, unwillingness to good, forwardness to evil: infinite power
quells this stoutness, demolishes these strong holds, turns this
wild ass in her course, and routs those armies of turbulent na-
ture against the grace of God. To stop the floods of the sea is
not such an act of power, as to turn the tide of the heart. This
power has been employed upon every convert in the world:
what would you say then, if you knew all the channels in
which it has run since the days of Adam? If the alteration of
one rocky heart into a pool of water be a wonder of power,
what then is the calming and sweetening by his word those
one hundred and forty-four thousand of the tribe of Israel, and.
that numberless multitude of all nations and people that shall
stand before the throne, Rev. vii. 9, which were all naturally
so many raging seas? Not one converted soul from Adam, to
the last that shall be in the end of the world, but is a trophy of
the Divine conquest. None were pure volunteers, nor listed
themselves in his service, till he put forth his strong arm to
draw them to him. No man's understanding but was chained
with darkness, and fond of it; no man but had corruption in his
will, which was dearer to him than any thing else which could
be proposed for his true happiness. These things are most
evident in Scripture and experience.

As this change is wrought against the inclinations of nature,
so against a multitude of corrupt habits rooted in the souls of
men. A distemper in its first invasion may more easily be
cured, than when it becomes chronical and inveterate. The
strength of a disease, or the complication of many, magnifies
the power of the physician and efficacy of the medicine that
tames and expels it. What power is that which has made

90 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

men stoop, when natural habits have been grown giants by
custom; when the putrefaction of nature has engendered a mul-
titude of worms; when the ulcers are many and deplorable;
when many cords, wherewith God would have bound the sin-
ner, have been broken, and, (like Samson,) the wicked heart
has gloried in its strength, and grown more proud, that it has
stood like a strong fort against those batteries, under which
others have fallen flat!

Every proud thought, every evil habit captivated, serves for
matter of triumph to the power of God, 2 Cor. x. 5. What re-
sistance will a multitude of them make, when one of them is
enough to hold the faculty under its dominion, and intercept
its operations! So many customary habits, so many old na-
tures, so many different strengths added to nature, every one
of them standing as a barricado against the way of grace; all
the errors the understanding is possessed with, think the gos-
pel folly; all the vices the will is filled with, count it the fetter
and band. Nothing so contrary to man, as to be thought a
fool; nothing so contrary to man, as to enter into slavery. It
is no easy matter to plant the cross of Christ upon a heart
guided by many principles against the truth of it, and biassed
by a world of wickedness against the holiness of it. Nature
renders a man too feeble and indisposed, and custom renders a
man more weak and unwilling to change his hue, Jer. xiii. 23.
To dispossess man then of his self-esteem and self-excellency;
to make room for God in the heart, where there was none but
for sin, as dear to him as himself; to hurl down the pride of
nature; to make stout imaginations stoop to the cross; to make
desires of self-advancement sink under a zeal for the glorifying
of God, and an overruling design for his honour, is not to be
ascribed to any, but an outstretched arm wielding the sword of
the Spirit. To fill a heart full of the fear of God, that was just
before filled with a contempt of him; to give a sense of his
power, an eye to his glory, admiring thoughts of his wisdom,
a faith in his truth, to the man that had lower thoughts of him
and all his perfections, than of a creature; to inspire a hatred of
his habitual lusts, that had brought him in much sensitive plea-
sure; to make him loathe them as much as he loved them, to
cherish the duties he hated, and to live by faith in, and obedi-
ence to the Redeemer, though before so heartily under the con-
duct of Satan and self; to chase the acts of sin from his mem-
bers, and the pleasing thoughts of sin from his mind ; to make
a stout wretch willingly fall down, crawl upon the ground, and
adore that Saviour whom before he out-dared, is a triumphant
act of infinite power that can subdue all things to itself, and
break those multitudes of locks and bolts that were upon us.

This change is wrought against a multitude of temptations

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91

and interests. The temptations rich men have in this world are
so numerous and strong, that the entrance of one of them into
the kingdom of heaven, that is, the entertainment of the gospel,
is made by our Saviour an impossible thing with men, and pro-
curable only by the power of God, Luke xviii. 24 — 27. The
Divine strength only can separate the world from the heart, and
the heart from the world. There must bean incomprehensible
power to chase away the devil, that had so long, so strong a
footing in the affections, to render the soil he had sown with so
many tares and weeds, capable of good grain; to make spirits,
that had found the sweetness of worldly prosperity, wrapped
up all their happiness in it, and not only bent down, but (as it
were) buried in earth and mud, to be loosened from those be-
loved cords, to disrelish the earth for a crucified Christ; I say,
this must be the effect of an Almighty power.

The manner of conversion shows no less the power of God.
There is not only an irresistible force used in it, but an agreea-
ble sweetness. The power is so efficacious, that nothing can
vanquish it; and so sweet, that none did ever complain of it.
The Almighty virtue displays itself invincibly, yet without con-
straint, compelling the will without offering violence to it, and
making it cease to be will: not forcing it, but changing it; not
dragging it, but drawing it; making it will where before it nilled;
removing the corrupt nature of the will, without invading the
created nature and rights of the faculty; not working in us
against the physical nature of the will, but working to will,
Phil. ii. 13. This work is therefore called creation, resurrection,
to show its irresistible power; it is called illumination, persua-
sion, drawing, to show the suitableness of its efficacy to the na-
ture of the human faculties: it is a drawing with cords, which
testifies an invincible strength; but, with cords of love, which
testifies a delightful conquest. It is hard to determine whether
it be more powerful than sweet, or more sweet than powerful.
It is no mean part of the power of God, to twist together vic-
tory and pleasure; to give a blow as delightful as strong, as
pleasing to the sufferer as it is sharp to the sinner.

The power of God in the application of redemption is evident
in the pardoning a sinner.

In the pardon itself. The power of God is made the ground
of his patience; or the reason why he is patient, is, because he
would show his power, Rom. ix. 22. It is a part of magnan*
imity to pass by injuries. As weaker stomachs cannot concoct
the tougher food, so weak minds cannot digest the harder inju-
ries: he that passes over a wrong, is superior to his adversary
that does it. When God speaks of his own name as merciful,
he speaks first of himself as powerful, Exod. xxxiv. 6. " The
Lord, the Lord God," that is, The Lord, the strong Lord, Je-

g2 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

hovah, the strong Jehovah. " Let the power of my Lord be
great,"1 saith Moses, when he prays for the forgiveness of the
people, Numb. xiv. 17. The word jigdal is written with a
great jod, or a jod above the other letters. The power of God
in pardoning is advanced beyond an ordinary strain, beyond the
creative strength. In the creation, he had power over the crea-
tures; in this, power over himself: in creation, not himself, but
the creatures were the object of his power; in that no attribute
of his nature could act against his design. In the pardon of a
sinner, after many overtures made to him and refused by him,
God exercises a power over himself; for the sinner has dishon-
oured God, provoked his justice, abused his goodness, done in-
jury to all those attributes which are necessary to his relief. It
was not so in creation, nothing was incapable of disobliging
God from bringing it into being. The dust, which was the
matter of Adam's body, needed only the extrinsic power of God
to form it into a man, and inspire it with a living soul; it had
not rendered itself obnoxious to Divine justice, nor was capable
to excite any disputes between his perfections. But after the
entrance of sin, and the merit of death, whereby there was a
resistance in justice to the free remission of man, God was to
exercise a power over himself, to answer his justice, and pardon
the sinner; as well as a power over the creature, to reduce the
runaway and rebel. Unless we have recourse to the infinite-
ness of God's power, the infiniteness of our guilt will weigh us
down: we must consider not only that we have a mighty guilt
to press us, but a mighty God to relieve us. In the same act of
his being our righteousness, he is our strength: " In the Lord
have I righteousness and strength," Isa. xlv. 24. ■

It is seen also in the sense of pardon. When the soul has
been wounded with the sense of sin, and its iniquities have
stared it in the face; the raising the soul from a despairing
condition, and lifting it above those waters which terrified it;
to cast the light of comfort, as well as the light of grace, into a
heart covered with more than an Egyptian darkness, is an act
of his infinite and creating power: " I create the fruit of the
lips; Peace," Isa. lvii. 19. Men may wear out their lips with
numbering up the promises of grace and arguments of peace;
but all will signify no more without a creative power, than if
all men and angels should call to that white upon the wall to
shine as splendidly as the sun. God only can create Jerusalem,
and every child of Jerusalem a rejoicing, Isa. lxv. 18. A man
is no more able to apply to himself any word of comfort under
the sense of sin, than he is able to convert himself, and turn
the proposals of the word into gracious affections in his heart.
To restore the joy of salvation, is in David's judgment an act

• j^wSw.), bo exnlted. LXX.

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

93

of sovereign power, equal to that of creating a clean heart
Psal. li. 10. 12. Alas, it is a state like to That of death: as infi-
nite power only can raise from natural death, so from a spiri-
tual death, also from a comfortless death. In his favour there
is life; in the want of his favour there is death. The power of
God has so placed light in the sun, that all creatures in the
world, all the torches upon earth kindled together,cannot make
it day, if that does not rise: so all the angels in heaven and
men upon earth, are not competent surgeons for a wounded
spirit. The cure of our spiritual ulcers, and the pouring in
balm, is an act of sovereign creative power: it is more visible
in silencing a tempestuous conscience, than the power of our
Saviour was in the stilling the stormy winds and the roaring
waves. As none but infinite power can remove the guilt of
sin, so none but infinite power can remove the despairing sense
of it.

This power is evident in preserving grace. As the provi-
dence of God is a manifestation of his power in a continued
creation; so the preservation of grace is a manifestation of his
power in a continued regeneration. To keep a nation under
the yoke, is an act of the same power that subdued it. It is
this that strengthens men in suffering against the fury of hell,
Col. i. 13; it is this that keeps them from falling against the
force of hell; the Father's hand, John x. 29. His strength
abates and moderates the violence of temptations; his staff
sustains his people under them; his might defeats the power of
Satan, and bruises him under a believer's feet. The counter-
workings of indwelling corruption, the reluctance of the flesh
against the breathings of the Spirit, the fallacy of the senses
and the rovings of the mind, have ability quickly to stifle and
extinguish grace, if it were not maintained by that powerful
blast that first inbreathed it. No less power is seen in perfect-
ing it, than was in planting it, 2 Pet. i. 3; no less in fulfilling
the work of faith, than in ingrafting the word of faith, 2 Thess.
i. 11.

The apostle well understood the necessity and efficacy of it
in the preservation of faith, as well as in the first infusion, when
he expresses himself in those terms of a greatness or hyperbole
of power, his mighty power, or the power of his might, Eph. i.
19. The salvation he bestows, and the Strength whereby he
effects it, are joined together in the prophet's song, Isa. xii. 2.
The Lord is my strength and my salvation. And indeed, God
does more magnify his power in continuing a believer in the
world, a weak and half-rigged vessel, in the midst of so many
sands whereon it might split, so many rocks whereon it might
dash, so many corruptions within, and so many temptations
Vol. II.— 13

94 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

without, than if he did immediately transport him into heaven,
and clothe him with a perfectly sanctified nature.

To conclude: what is there then in the world which is desti-
tute of notices of Divine power? Every creature affords us
the lesson; all acts of Divine government are the marks of it.
Look' into the world, and the manner of its propagation in-
structs us in it; and your changed natures, your pardoned
guilt, your shining comfort, your quelled corruptions, the
standing of your staggering graces, are sufficient to preserve a
sense and prevent a forgetfulness of this great attribute, so ne-
cessary for your support, and conducing so much to your com-
fort.
4. Use.

Use (1.) Of information and instruction.
[1.] If incomprehensible and infinite power belongs to the
nature of God, then Jesus Christ has a Divine nature, because
the acts of power proper to God are ascribed to him. This
perfection of omnipotence does unquestionably pertain to the
Deity, and is an incommunicable property, and the same with
the essence of God: he therefore to whom this attribute is
ascribed, is essentially God.

This is challenged by Christ in conjunction with eternity; "I
am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the
Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Al-
mighty," Rev. i. 8. This the Lord Christ speaks of himself.
He who was equal with God, proclaims himself by the essen-
tial title of the Godhead, part of which he repeats again, ver.
11. And this is the person which walks in the midst of the
seven golden candlesticks; the person that was dead and now
lives, ver. 17, IS; which cannot possibly be meant of the
Father, the first Person, who can never come under that de-
nomination of having been dead. Being therefore adorned
with the same title, he has the same Deity; and though his
omnipotence be only positively, asserted, ver 8, yet his eternity
being asserted, ver. 11. 17, it infers his immense power; for he
that is eternal, without limits of time, must needs be conceived
powerful, without any dash of infirmity.

Again, when he is said t6 be a child born and a son given,
in the same breath he is called, The mighty God, Isa. ix. 6. It
is introduced as a ground of comfort to the church, to preserve
their hopes in the accomplishment of the promises made to them
before. They should not imagine him to have only the infirmity
of a man, though he was veiled in the appearance of a man.
No, they should look through the disguise of his flesh to the
might of his Godhead. The attribute of mighty is added to
the title God, because the consideration of power is most capa-

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

95

ble to sustain the drooping church in such a condition, and to
prop up her hopes. It is upon this account he said of himself,
that whatsoever things the Father does, those also does the Son
likewise, John v. 19. In creation of heaven, earth, sea, and
the preservation of all creatures, the Son works with the same
will, wisdom, virtue, power, as the Father works: not as two
may concur in any action in a different manner; as an agent
and an instrument, a carpenter and his tools; but in the same
manner of operation, 0^01^5-, which we translate likeness, which
does not express so well the emphasis of the word. It is as
though he had said, "There is no diversity of action between
us; what the Father doth, that I do by the same power, with
the same easiness in every respect; there is the same creative,
productive, conservative power, in both of us; and that not in
one work that is done ad extra, but in all, in whatsoever the
Father doth." In the same manner; not by a delegated, but
natural and essential power, by one undivided operation and
manner of working.

The creation, which is a work of omnipotence, is more than
once ascribed to him. This he does own himself; the creation
of the earth, and of man upon it; the stretching out the heavens
by his hands, and the forming of all the host of them by his
command, Isa. xlv. 12. He is not only the Creator of Israel,
the church, ver. 12, but of the whole world, and every creature
on the face of the earth, and in the glories of the heavens,
which is repeated also ver. 18, where in this act of creation he
is called God himself, and speaks of himself in the term Jeho-
vah; and swears by himself, ver. 23. What does he swear?
"That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall
swear." Is this Christ? Yes, if the apostle maybe believed,
who applies it to him, Rom. xiv. 11, to prove the appearance
of all men before the judgment seat of Christ, whom the pro-
phet calls, ver. 15, a God that hides himself; and so he was a
hidden God when obscured in our fleshly infirmities. He was
in conjunction with the Father when the sea received his de-
cree, and the foundations of the earth were appointed; not as a
spectator, but as an artificer, for so the word, in Prov. viii. 30,
signifies, "as one brought up with him;" it signifies also, a
cunning workman, Cant. vii. 1. He was the east, or the sun,
from whence sprang all the light of life and being to the crea-
ture; so the word, Prov. viii. 22, which is translated, "before
his works of old," is rendered by some, and signifies "the east,"
as well as "before;" but if it notes only his existence before, it
is enough to prove his Deity.

The Scripture does not only allow him an existence before
the world, but exalts him as the cause of the world. A thing

96 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

may precede another that is not the cause of that which fol-
lows: a precedency in age does not entitle one brother or thing
the cause of another: but our Saviour is not only more ancient
than the world, but is the Creator of the world ; who laid the
foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of his
hands, Heb. i. 10. So great a eulogy cannot be given to one
destitute of omnipotence, since the distance between being and
not being is so vast a gulf, that cannot be surmounted and
stepped over, but by an infinite power. He is the first and last,
that called the generations from the beginning, Isa. xli. 4, and
had an almighty voice to call them out of nothing. In which
regard he is called, The everlasting Father, Isa. ix. 6, as being
the efficient of creation; as God is called the Father of the rain,
or as the father is taken for the inventor of an art; as Jubal,
the first framer and inventor of music, is called " the father of
such as handle the harp," Gen. iv. 21. And that Person is said
to make the sea, and form the dry land by his hands, Psal. xcv.
5, against whom we are exhorted not to harden our hearts,
verse 8; which is applied to Christ by his apostle, Heb. iii. S;
in verse 3, he is called a great King, and a great God our
Maker. The places wherein the creation is attributed to Christ,
those that are the antagonists of his Deity would evade, by
understanding them of the new or evangelical, not of the first,
old, and material creation. But what appearance is there for
such a sense? Consider,

That of Heb. i. 10, 11, is spoken of that earth and heavens
which were in the beginning of time; it is that earth that shall
perish, that heaven that shall be folded up, that creation that
shall grow old towards a decay; that is, only the visible and
material creation. The spiritual shall endure for ever; it grows
not old to decay, but grows up to a perfection; it sprouts up to
its happiness, not to its detriment. The same Person creates
that shall destroy, and the same world is created by him that
shall be destroyed by him, as well as it subsisted by virtue of
his omnipotency.

Can that also, Heb. i. 2, " By whom also he made the worlds,"
speaking of Christ, bear the same plea? It was the same Per-
son by whom God spake to us in these last times, the same
Person which he has constituted Heir of all things, by whom
also he made the worlds: and the particle " also," intimates it
to be a distinct act from his speaking or prophetical office,
whereby he restored and new-created the world, as well as the
rightful foundation God had to make him Heir of all things.
It refers likewise, not to the time of Christ's speaking upon
earth, but to something past, and something different from the
publication of the gospel : it is not, "does make," which had been

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97

more likely if the apostle had meant only the new creation ; but,
"has made,"1 referring to time long since past, something done
before his appearance upon earth as a prophet. " By whom also
he made the worlds," or ages, all things subjected to or mea-
sured by time; which must be meant, according to the Jewish
phrase, of this material visible world. So they entitle God in
their liturgy, The Lord of Ages; that is, the Lord of the world,
and all ages and revolutions of the world, from the creation to
the last period of time. If any thing were in being before this
frame of heaven and earlh, and within the compass of time, it
received being and duration from the Son of God. The apos-
tle would give an argument to prove the equity of making him
Heir of all things as Mediator, because he was the framer of
all things as God. He may well be the Heir or Lord of angels
as well as men, who created angels as well as men: all things
were justly under his power as Mediator, since they derived
their existence from him as Creator.

But, again, what evasion can there be for that, Col. i. 16.
" By him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that
are in earth, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or princi-
palities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for
him." He is said to be the Creator of material and visible
things, as well as spiritual and invisible; of things in heaven,
which needed no restoration, as well as things on earth, which
were polluted by sin, and stood in need of a new creation.
How could the angels belong to the new creation, who had
never put off the honour and purity of the first? Since they
never divested themselves of their orignal integrity, they could
not be re-invested with that which they never lost. Besides,
suppose the holy angels be one way or other reduced as parts
of the new creation, as being under the mediatory government
of our Saviour, as their Head, and in regard of their confirma-
tion by him in that happy state, in what manner shall the devils
be ranked among new creatures? They are called principali-
ties and powers as well as the angels, and may come under the
title of things invisible. That they are called principalities and
powers is plain, Eph. vi. 12: " For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the
rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wicked-
ness in high places." Good angels are not there meant, for
what war have believers with them, or they with believers?
They are the guardians of them, since Christ has taken away
the enmity between our Lord and theirs, in whose quarrel they
were engaged against us: and since the apostle, speaking of all
things created by him, expresses it so, that it cannot be con-
ceived he should except any thing; how came the finally impe-

1 ,¥.7romTiv.

98 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

nitent and unbelievers, which are things in earth, and visible,
to be listed here in the roll of new creatures? None of these
can be called new creatures, because they are subjected to the
government of Christ; no more than the earth and sea, and the
animals in it, are made new creatures, because they are all
under the dominion of Christ and his providential government.
Again, the apostle manifestly makes the creation he here speaks
of, to be the material, and not the new creation; for that he
speaks of afterwards as a distinct act of our Lord Jesus, under
the title of reconciliation, Col. i. 20, 21, which was the restora-
tion of the world, and the satisfying for that curse that lay upon
it. His intent is here to show, that not an angel in heaven, nor
a creature upon earth, but was placed in their several degrees
of excellency by the power of the Son of God, who, after that
act of creation and the entrance of sin, was the Reconciler of
the world through the blood of his cross.

There is another place as clear; John i. 3. " All things were
made by him; and without him was not any thing made that
was made." The creation is here ascribed to him; affirma-
tively, All things were made by him; negatively, There was
nothing made without him; and the words are emphatical, ov&t
&>, not one thing; excepting nothing: including invisible things
as well as things conspicuous to sense only, mentioned in the
story of the creation, Gen. i.; not only the entire mass, but the
distinct parcels, the smallest worm and the highest angel, owe
their original to him. And if not one thing, then the matter
was not created to his hands; and his work consisted not merely
in the forming things from that matter. If that one thing of
matter were excepted, a chief thing were excepted; if not one
thing were excepted, then he created something of nothing, be-
cause spirits, as angels and souls, are not made of any pre-ex-
isting or fore-created matter. How could the evangelist phrase
it more extensively and comprehensively? This is a character
of omnipotency; to create the world and every thing in it, of
nothing, requires an infinite virtue and power. If all things
were created by him, they were not created by him as man, be-
cause himself, as man, was not in being before the creation. If
all things were made by him, then himself was not made, him-
self was not created; and to be existent without being made,
without being created, is to be unboundedly omnipotent. And
if we understand it of the new creation, as they do that will not
allow him an existence in his Deity before his humanity, it can-
not be true of that; for how could he regenerate Abraham,
make Simeon and Anna new creatures, who waited for the sal-
vation of Israel; and John Baptist, and fill him with the Holy
Ghost, even from the womb, Luke i. 15, (who belonged to the
new creation, and was to prepare the way,) if Christ had not a

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

99

being before him? The evangelist alludes to and explains the
history of the creation in the beginning, and acquaints us what
was meant by " God said," so often, namely, the eternal Word,
and describes him in his creative power, manifested in the fram-
ing the world, before he describes him in his incarnation, when
he came to lay the foundation of the restoration of the world,
John i. 14. "The Word was made flesh,"' this Word who was
with God, who was God, who made all things, and gave being
to the most glorious angels and the meanest creature without
exception; this Word, in time, was made flesh.

The creation of things mentioned in these Scriptures cannot
be attributed to him as an instrument. As if when it is said,
God created all things by him, and by him made the worlds,
we were to understand the Father to be the agent, and the Son
to be a tool in his Father's hand, as an axe in the hand of a car-
penter, or a file in the hand of a smith, or a servant acting by
command as the organ of his master. The preposition per, or
8i«, does not always signify an instrumental cause. When it is
said, that the apostle gave the Thessalonians a command by
Jesus Christ, 1 Thess. iv. 2; was Christ the instrument, and not
the Lord of that command the apostle gave? The immediate
operation of Christ dwelling in the apostles, was that whereby
they gave the commands to their disciples. When we are called
by God, 1 Cor. i. 9, is he the instrumental or principal cause of
our effectual vocation? And can the will of God be the instru-
ment of putting Paul into the apostleship,or the sovereign cause
of investing him with that dignity, when he calls himself an
apostle by the will of God? Eph. i. 1. And when all things are
said to be through God, as well as of him, must he be counted
the instrumental cause of his own creation, counsels, and judg-
ments? Rom. xi. 36. When we mortify the deeds of the body
through the Spirit, Rom. viii. 13; or keep the treasure of the
word by the Holy Ghost, 2 Tim. i. 14; is the Holy Ghost of no
more dignity in such acts than an instrument ? Nor does the
gaining a thing by a person make him a mere instrument or
inferior; as when a man gains his right in a way of justice
against his adversary by the magistrate, is the judge inferior to
the suppliant? If the Word were an instrument in creation, it
must be a created or uncreated instrument: if created, it could
not be true what the evangelist saith, that all things were made
by him, since himself, the principal thing, could not be made by
himself; if uncreated, he was God, and so acted by a Divine
omnipotency, which surmounts an instrumental cause. But in-
deed, an instrument is impossible in creation, since it is wrought
only by an act of the Divine will. Do we need any organ to
an act of volition? The efficacious will of the Creator is the
cause of the original of the body of the world, with its partial-

J Q0 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

lar members and exact harmony: it was formed by a word and
established by a command, Psal. xxxiii. 9; the beauty of the
creation stood up at the precept of his will. Nor was the Son
a partial cause; as when many are said to build a house, one
works one part, and another frames another part: God created
all things by the immediate operation of the Son, in the unity
of essence, goodness, power, wisdom: not an extrinsic, but a
connatural instrument. As the sun does illustrate all things by
his light, and quickens all things by his heat; so God created
the worlds by Christ, as he was the brightness or splendour of
his glory, the exact image of his person; which follows the de-
claration of his making the worlds by him, Heb. i. 2, 3, to show,
that he acted not as an instrument, but one in essential conjunc-
tion with him, as light and brightness with the sun. But sup-
pose he did make the world as a kind of instrument; he was
then before the world, not bounded by time; and eternity cannot
well be conceived belonging to a being without omnipotency.
He is the end as well as the author of the creatures, Col. i. 16;
not only the principle which gave them being, but the sea into
whose glory they run and dissolve themselves, which consists
not with the meanness of an instrument.

As creation, so preservation is ascribed to him. " By him
all things consist," Col. i. 17. As he preceded all things in
his eternity, so he establishes all things by his omnipotency,
and fixes them in their several centres, that they sink not into
that nothing from whence he fetched them. By him they
flourish in their several beings, and observe the laws and orders
he first appointed. That power of his which extracted them
from insensible nothing, upholds them in their several beings
with the same facility as he spake being into them, even by the
word of his power, Heb. i. 3; and by one creative continued
voice called all generations from the beginning to the period of
the world, Isa. xli. 4; and causes them to flourish in their
several seasons. It is by him kings reign and princes decree
justice, and all things are confined within the limits of govern-
ment. All which are acts of an infinite power.

Resurrection is also ascribed to him. The body crumbled
to dust, and that dust blown to several quarters of the world,
cannot be gathered in its distinct parts, and new formed for the
entertainment of the soul, without the strength of an infinite
arm. This he will do, and more; change the vileness of an
earthly body into the glory of a heavenly one, a dusty flesh
into a spiritual body, which is an argument of a power invin-
cible, to which all things cannot but stoop; for it is by such an
operation, which testifies an ability to subdue all things to him-
self, Phil. iii. 21; especially when he works it with the same
ease as he did the creation, by the power of his voice. " All

ON THE POWER OF GOD. jqj

that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come
forth," John v. 28; speaking them into a restored life from
insensible dnst, as he did into being from an empty nothing.
The greatest acts of power are owned to belong to creation,
preservation, resurrection. Omnipotence therefore is his right;
and therefore a Deity cannot be denied to him that inherits a
perfection essential to none but God, and impossible to be in-
trusted to or managed by the hands of any creatures.

And this is no mean comfort to those that believe in him:
he is, in regard of his power, the horn of salvation; so Zacha-
rias sings of him, Luke i. 69. Nor could there be any more
mighty found out, upon whom God could have laid our help,
Psal. Ixxxix. 19. No reason therefore to doubt his ability to
save to the uttermost, who has the power of creation, preser-
vation, and resurrection in his hands. His promises must be
accomplished, since nothing can resist him: he has power to
fulfil his word, and bring all things to a final issue, because he
is almighty; by his outstretched arm in the deliverance of his
Israel from Egypt, (for it was his arm, 1 Cor. x.) he showed
that he was able to deliver us from spiritual Egypt. The
charge of Mediator to expiate sin, vanquish hell, form a church,
conduct and perfect it, are not to be effected by a person of less
ability than infinite. Let this almightiness of his be the bot-
tom, wherein to cast and fix the anchor of our hopes.

[2.] Hence may be inferred the Deity of the Holy Ghost.
Works of ornnipotency are ascribed to the Spirit of God: by
the motion of the wings of this Spirit, as a bird over her eggs,
was that rude and unshapen mass hatched into a comely world.1
The stars, or perhaps the angels are meant by the garnishing
of the heavens in the verse before the text, were brought forth
in their comeliness and dignity, as the ornaments of the upper
world, by this Spirit: "By his Spirit he hath garnished the
heavens." To this Spirit Job ascribes the formation both of
the body and soul under the title of Almighty. " The Spirit of
God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given
me life, Job xxxiii. 4. Resurrection, another work of ornnipo-
tency, is attributed to him, Rom. viii. 11. The conception of
our Saviour in the womb, the miracles that he wrought, were
by the power of the Spirit in him. Power is a title belonging
to him, and sometimes both are put together, 1 Thess. i. 5, and
other places. And that great power of changing the heart, and
sanctifying a polluted nature, a work greater than creation, is
frequently acknowledged in the Scripture to be the peculiar act
of the Holy Ghost. The Father, Son, Spirit, are one principle
in creation, resurrection, and all the works of omnipotence.

[3.] Another inference from the doctrine is — The blessedness
1 So the word " moved" properly signifies, Gen. i. 2.
Vol. II.— 14

|02 0N THE POWER OF GOD.

of God is hence evidenced. If God be almighty, he can want
nothing: all want speaks weakness. If he does what he will,
he cannot be miserable: all misery consists in those things
which happen contrary to our will. There is nothing can hin-
der his happiness, because nothing can resist his power. Since
he is omnipotent, nothing can hurt him, nothing can strip him
of what he has, of what he is.1 If he can do whatsoever he
will, he cannot want any thing that he wills; he is as happy,
as great, as glorious as he will: for he has a perfect liberty of
will to will, and a perfect power to attain what he will; his
will cannot be restrained, nor his power matched. It would
be a defect in blessedness, to will what he were not able to do:
sorrow is the result of a want of power, with a presence of
will. If he could will any thing which he could not effect, he
would be miserable, and no longer God : he can do whatso-
ever he pleases, and therefore can want nothing that pleases
him.2 He cannot be happy, the original of whose happiness
is not in himself: nothing can be infinitely happy that is limit-
ed and bounded.

[4.] Hence is a ground for the immutability of God. As he
is incapable of changing his resolves, because of his infinite
wisdom, so he is incapable of being forced to any change, be-
cause of his infinite power. Being almighty, he can be no
more changed from power to weakness, than, being all-wise,
he can be changed from wisdom to folly; or, being omniscient,
from knowledge to ignorance. He cannot be altered in his
purposes, because of his wisdom, nor in the manner and me-
thod of his actions, because of his infinite strength. Men,
indeed, when their designs are laid deepest, and their purposes
stand firmest, yet are forced to stand still, or change the man-
ner of the execution of their resolves, by reason of some out-
ward accidents that obstruct them in their course; for having
not wisdom to foresee future hindrances, they have not power
to prevent them, or strength to remove them, when they unex-
pectedly interpose themselves between their desire and per-
formance. But no created power has strength enough to be a
bar against God. By the same act of his will that he resolves
a thing, he can puff away any impediments that seem to rise
up against him. He that wants no means to effect his pur-
poses, cannot be checked by any tiling that rises up to stand in
his way: heaven, earth, sea, the deepest places, are too weak
to resist his will, Psal. cxxxv. 6. The purity of the angels will
not, and the devils' malice cannot frustrate his will: the one
voluntarily obeys the beck of his hand, and the other are van-
quished by the power of it. What can make him change his
purposes, who (if he please) can dash the earth against the

1 Sabundc, tit. 39. 2 Pont. part. 6. incd. 16. p. 531.

ON THE POWER OF GOD. JQ3

heavens in the twinkling of an eye, untying the world from its
centre, clap the stars and elements together into one mass, and
blow the whole creation of men and devils into nothing. Be-
cause he is almighty, therefore he is immutable.

[5.] Hence is inferred the providence of God, and his govern-
ment of the world. His power as well as his wisdom gives
him a right to govern: nothing can equal him, therefore nothing
can share the command with him; since all things are his works,
it is fittest they should be under his order. He that frames a
work, is fittest, to guide and govern it. God has the most right
to govern, because he has knowledge to direct his power, and
power to execute the results of his wisdom: he knows what
is convenient to order, and has strength to effect what he or-
ders. As his power would be oppressive without goodness and
wisdom, so his goodness and wisdom would be fruitless without
power. x\n artificer that has lost his hands can direct, but can-
not make an engine: a pilot that has lost his arms may advise
the way of steerage, but cannot hold the helm; something is
wanting in him to be a complete governor: but since both coun-
sel and power are infinite in God, hence results an infinite right
to govern, and an infinite fitness, because his will cannot be
resisted, his power cannot be enfeebled or diminished; he can
quicken and increase the strength of all means as he pleases.
He can hold all things in the world together, and preserve them
in those functions wherein he settled them, and conduct them
to those ends for which he designed them.

Every artificer, the more excellent he is, and the more excel-
lency of power appears in his work, is the more careful to
maintain and cherish it. Those that deny Providence, do not
only ravish from him the bowels of his goodness, but strip him
of a main exercise of his power, and engender in men a suspi-
cion of weariness and feebleness in him; as though bis strength
had been spent in making them, so that none is left to guide
them. They would strip him at once of wisdom, goodness,
and strength. If he did not, or were not able to preserve and
provide for his creatures, his power in making them would be
in a great part an invisible power; if he did not preserve what
he made, and govern what he preserves, it would be a kind of
strange and rude power, to make, and suffer it to be dashed in
pieces at the pleasure of others. If the power of God should
relinquish the world, the life of things would be extinguished,
the fabric would be confounded and fall into a deplorable
chaos. That which is composed of so many various pieces,
could not maintain its union, if there were not a secret virtue
binding them together and maintaining those varieties of links.

Well then, since God is not only so good, that he cannot will
any thing but what is good ; so wise, that he cannot err or

1Q4 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

mistake; but also so able, that he cannot be defeated or
matched ; he has every way a full ability to govern the world.
Where those three are infinite, the right and fitness resulting
from thence is unquestionable: and indeed, to deny God this
active part of his power, is to render him weak, foolish, cruel,
or all.

[6.] Here is a ground for the worship of God. Wisdom and
power are the grounds of the respect we give to men ; they
being both infinite in God, are the foundation of a solemn ho-
nour to be returned to him by his creatures. If a man make a
curious engine, we honour him for his skill ; if another van-
quish a vigorous enemy, we admire him for his strength ; and
shall not the efficacy of God's power in creation, government,
redemption, inflame us with a sense of the honour of his name
and perfections? We admire those princes that have vast em-
pires, numerous armies, that have a power to conquer their
enemies, and preserve their own people in peace: how much
more ground have we to pay a mighty reverence to God, who
without trouble and weariness made and manages this vast
empire of the world by a word and beck ! What sensible
thoughts have we of the noise of thunder, the power of the
sun, the storms of the sea ! These things that have no under-
standing have struck men with such a reverence, that many
have adored them as gods. What reverence and adoration
does this mighty power, joined with an infinite wisdom in God,
demand at our hands!

All religion and worship stand especially upon two pillars,
goodness and power in God; if either of these were defective,
all religion would faint away. We can expect no entertain-
ment with him without goodness, nor any benefit from him
without power. This God prefaces to the command to wor-
ship him, the benefit his goodness had conferred upon them,
and the powerful manner of conveying it to them : " The Lord,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power
and a stretched-out arm, him shall ye fear, and him shall ye
worship, and to him shall ye do sacrifice," 2 Kings xvii. 36.
Because this attribute is a main foundation of prayer, the Lord's
prayer is concluded with a doxology of it, "For thine is the
kingdom, the power, and the glory." As he is rich, possessing
all blessings; so he is powerful, to confer all blessings on us,
and make them efficacious to us. The Jews repeat many times in
their prayers, some say an hundred times, oSiyn -^d The King
of the world; it is both an awe and an encouragement.1 We
could not without consideration of it pray in faith of success;
nay, we could not pray at all, if his power were defective to
help us, and his mercy too weak to relieve us. Who would

' Capel.in 1 Tim. i. 17.

ON THE POWER OF GOD. JQ5

solicit a lifeless, or lie a prostrate suppliant to a feeble arm?
Upon this ability of God our Saviour built his petitions-, " He
offered up strong cries unto him that was able to save him.
from death," Heb. v. 7. Abraham's faith hung upon the same
string, Rom. iv. 21, and the captived church supplicates God
to act according to the greatness of his power, Psal. lxxix. 11.
In all our addresses this is to be eyed and considered, " God is
able to help, to relieve, to ease me, let my misery be never so
great, and my strength never so weak." " If thou wilt, thou
canst make me clean," Matt. viii. 2, was the consideration the
leper had when he came to worship Christ; he was clear in
his power, and therefore worshipped him, though he was not
equally clear in his will. All worship is shot wrong that is
not directed to and conducted by the thoughts of this attribute,
whose assistance we need. When we beg the pardon of our
sins, we should eye mercy and power; when we beg his right-
ing us in any case where we are unjustly oppressed, we do
not eye righteousness without power; when we plead the per-
formance of his promise, we do not regard his faithfulness
only, without the prop of his power. As power ushers in all
the attributes of God in their exercise and manifestation in the
world, so should it be the point our eyes should be fixed upon
in all our acts of worship. As without his power his other
attributes would be useless, so without apprehensions of his
power our prayers will be faithless and comfortless. The title
in the Lord's prayer directs us to a prospect both of his good-
ness and power; his goodness in the word " Father," his great-
ness, excellency, and power in the word " heaven." The
heedless consideration of the infmiteness of this perfection roots
up piety in the midst of us, and makes us so careless in wor-
ship. Did we think more of that power that raised the world
out of nothing; that orders all creatures by an act of his will;
that performed so great an exploit, as that of our redemption,
when masterless sin had triumphed over the world; we should
give God the honour and adoration which so great an excel-
lency challenges and deserves at our hands, though we our-
selves had not been the work of his hands, or the monuments
of his strength. How could any creature engross to itself that
reverence from us which is due to the powerful Creator, of
whom it comes infinitely short in strength as well as wisdom?
[7.] From this we have a ground for the belief of the resur-
rection. God aims at the glory of his power, as well as the
glory of any other attribute. Moses else would not have culled
out this as the main argument in his pleading with God, for the
sheathing the sword which he began to draw out against them
in the wilderness: the nations will say, "Because the Lord
was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware

106 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

unto them," Numb. xiv. 16. As the finding out the particu-
lars of the dust of our bodies discovers the vastness of his
knowledge; so to raise them will manifest the glory of his
power as much as creation. Bodies that have mouldered
away into multitudes of atoms, been resolved into the elements,
passed through varieties of changes ; been sometimes the mat-
ter to lodge the form of a plant, or been turned into the sub-
stance of a fish or fowl, or vapoured up into a cloud, and been
part of that matter which has compacted a thunder bolt; dis-
posed of in places far distant, scattered by the winds, swallow-
ed and concocted by beasts; for these to be called out from
their different places of abode to meet in one body, and be
restored to their former consistency in a marriage union in the
twinkling of an eye, 1 Cor. xv. 52, it is a consideration that
may justly amaze us, and our shallow understandings are too
feeble to comprehend it. But is it not credible, since all the
disputes against it may be silenced by reflections on infinite
power, which nothing can oppose, for which nothing can be
esteemed too difficult to effect, which does not imply a contra-
diction in itself? It was no less amazing to the blessed virgin
to hear a message that she should conceive a Son without
knowing a man; but she is quickly answered by the angel,
with a " Nothing is impossible to God," Luke i. 34. 37. The
distinct parts of our bodies cannot be hid from his all-seeing
eye, wherever they are lodged, and in all the changes they
pass through, as was discoursed when the omniscience of God
was handled; shall then the collection of them together be too
hard for his invincible power and strength, and the uniting all
those parts into a body, with new dispositions, to receive their
several souls, be too big and bulky for that power which never
yet was acquainted with any bar? Was not the miracle of our
Saviour's multiplying the loaves, suppose it had not been by a
new creation, but a collection of grain from several parts, very
nearly as stupendous as this ? Had any one of us been the only
creature made just before the matter of the world, and beheld
that unformed chaos covered with a thick darkness, mentioned
Gen. i. 2; would not the report, that from this dark deep, next
to nothing, should be raised such a multitude of comely crea-
tures, with such innumerable varieties of members, voices,
colours, motions, and such numbers of shining stars; a bright
sun, one uniform body of light from this darkness, that should,
like a giant, rejoice to run a race for many thousands of years
together, without stop or weariness; would not all these have
seemed as incredible as the collection of scattered dust? What
was it that erected the innumerable host of heaven, the glori-
ous angels, the glittering stars, for aught we know more
numerous than the bodies of men, but an act of the Divine

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

107

will; and shall the power that wrought this, sink under the
charge of gathering some dispersed atoms, and compacting
them into a human body? Can you tell how the dust of the
ground was kneaded by God into the body of man, and
changed into flesh, skin, hair, bones, sinews, veins, arteries,
and blood, and fitted for so many several activities, when a
human soul was breathed into it?1 Can you imagine how a
rib taken from Adam's side, a lifeless bone, was formed into
head, hands, feet, eyes? Why may not the matter of men
which have been, be restored, as well as that which was not,
be first erected? Is it harder to repair those things which
were, than to create those things which were not ? Is there
not the same Artificer? Has any disease or sickliness abated
his power? Is the Ancient of days grown feeble; or shall the
elements and other creatures,, that always yet obeyed his com-
mand, ruffle against his raising voice, and refuse to disgorge
those remains of human bodies they have swallowed up m
their several bowels? Did the whole world and all the parts
of it rise at his word, and shall not some pans of the world,
the dust of the dead, stand up out of the graves at a word of
the same mighty efficacy? Do we not annually see those
marks of power which may stun our incredulity in this con-
cern? Do you see in a small acorn or little seed, any such
sights, as a tree with body, bark, branches, leaves, flowers,
fruit? where can you find them? Do you know the invisible
corners where they lurk in that little body ? And yet these you
afterwards view rising up from this little body, when sown in
the ground, that you could not possibly have any prospect of
when you rolled it in your hand, or opened its bowels. And
why may not all the particulars of our bodies, however dis-
posed as to their distinct natures invisibly to us, remain distinct,
as well as if you mingle a thousand seeds together, they will
come up in their distinct kinds, and preserve their distinct vir-
tues ?

Again, is not the making heaven and earth, the union of the
Divine and human nature, eternity and infirmity, to make a
virgin conceive a Son, bear the Creator, and bring forth the
Redeemer, to form the blood of God of the flesh of a virgin, a
greater work than the calling together and uniting the scattered
parts of our bodies, which are all of one nature and matter?
And since the power of God is manifested in pardoning innu-
merable sins, is not the scattering our transgressions, as far as
the east is from the west, as the expression is, Psal. ciii. 12, and
casting such numbers into the depths of the sea, which is God's
power over himself, a greater argument of might, than the re-
calling and repairing the atoms of our bodies from their vari-

' Lingend. torn. 3. p. 779, 780.

108 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

ous receptacles? It is not hard for them to believe this of the
resurrection, that have been sensible of the weight and force of
their sins, and the power of God in pardoning and vanquishing
that mighty resistance which was made in their hearts against
the power of his renewing and sanctifying grace. The consi-
deration of the infinite power of God, is a good ground of the
belief of the resurrection.

[8.] Since the power of God is so great and incomprehensi-
ble, how strange is it that it should be contemned and abused
by the creatures as it is! The power of God is beaten down
by some, outraged by others, blasphemed by many under their
sufferings. The stripping God of the honour of his creation,
and the glory of his preservation of the world, falls under this
charge. Thus do they that deny his framing the world alone,
or thought the first matter was not of God's creation; and such
as fancied an evil principle the author of all evil, as God is the
author of all good, and so exempt from the power of God that
it could not be vanquished by him. These things have former-
ly found defenders in the world; but they are in themselves
ridiculous and vain, and have no footing in common reason,
and are not worthy of debate in a Christian auditory.

In general, all idolatry in the world did arise from the want
of a due notion of this infinite power. The heathen thought
one God was not sufficient for the managing all things in the
world, and therefore they feigned several gods that had several
charges: as Ceres presided over the fruits of the earth; Escu-
lapius over the cure of distempers; Mercury for merchandise
and trade ; Mars for war and battles; Apollo and Minerva for
learning and ingenious arts; and Fortune for casual things.
Whence doth the other sort of idolatry, the adoring our bags
and gold, our dependencies on and trusting in creatures for
help, arise, but from ignorance of God's power, or mean and
slender apprehensions of it?

There is a contempt of it, and there is,

An abuse of it.

It is contemned in every sin, especially in obstinacy in sin.
All sin whatsoever is built upon some false notion or mon-
strous conception of one or other of God's perfections, and in
particular of this. It includes a secret and lurking imagina-
tion, that we are able to grapple with Omnipotence, and enter
the lists with Almightiness: what else can be judged of the
apostle's expression, I Cor. x. 22. "Do we provoke the Lord
to jealousy? are we stronger than he?" Do we think we have
an arm too powerful for that justice we provoke, and can repel
that vengeance we exasperate? do we think we are an even
match for God, and are able to despoil him of his Divinity?
To despise his will, violate his order, practise what he forbids

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

109

with a severe threatening, and pawns his power to make it
good, is to pretend to have an arm like God, and be able to
thunder with a voice equal or superior to him, as the expres-
sion is, Job xl. 9. All security in sin is of this strain ; when
men are not concerned at Divine threatenings, nor staggered in
their sinful race, they intimate, that the declarations of Divine
power are but vainglorious boastings; that God is not so strong
and able as he reports himself to be; and therefore they will
venture it, and dare him to try, whether the strength of his
arm be as forcible as the words of his mouth are terrible in his
threats; this is to believe themselves creators, not creatures.
We magnify God's power in our wants, and debase it in our
rebellions; as though Omnipotence were only able to supply
our necessities, and unable to revenge the injuries we offer
him.

This power is contemned in distrust of God. All distrust
is founded in a doubting of his truth, as if he would not be as
good as his word; or of his omniscience, as if he had not a
memory to retain his word; or of his power, as if he could not
be as great as his word. We measure the infinite power of
God by the short line of our understandings, as if infinite
strength were bounded within the narrow compass of our
finite reason; as if he could do no more than we were able
to do.

How soon did those Israelites lose the remembrance of God's
outstretched arm, when they uttered that atheistical speech,
" Can God furnish a table in the wilderness!" Psal. lxxviii. 19.
As if he that turned the dust of Egypt into lice, for the punish-
ment of their oppressors, could not turn the dust of the wilder^
ness into corn, for the support of their bodies! as if he that had
miraculously rebuked the Red Sea for their safety, could not
provide bread for their nourishment! Though they had seen
the Egyptians with lost lives in the morning, in the same place
where their lives had been miraculously preserved in the even-
ing; yet they disgrace that experimented power, by opposing
to it the stature of the Anakim, the strength of their cities, and
the height of their walls, Numb. xiii. 32. And, chap. xiv. 3.
" Wherefore hath the Lord brought us unto this land to fall by
the sword?" As though the giants of Canaan were too strong
for him, for whom they had seen the armies of Egypt too
weak. How did they contract the almightiness of God into
the littleness of a little man, as if he must needs sink under the
sword of a Canaanite !

This distrust must arise either from a flat atheism, a denial of

the being of God, or his government of the world; or unworthy

conceits of a weakness in him, that he had made creatures too

hard for himself; that he were not strong enough to grapple

Vol. II.— 15

110

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

with those mighty Anakim, and give them the possession of
Canaan against so great a force. Distrust of him implies either
that he was always destitute of power, or that his power is
exhausted by his former works, or that it is limited and near a
period: it is to deny him to be the Creator, that moulded hea-
ven and earth. Why should we by distrust put a slight upon
that power which he hath so often expressed, and which in the
minutest works of his hands surmounts the force of the sharpest
understanding?

It is contemned in too great a fear of man, which arises
from a distrust of Divine power. Fear of man, is a crediting
the might of man with a disrepute of the arm of God; it takes
away the glory of his might, and renders the creature stronger
than God, and God more feeble than a mortal; as if the arm of
man were a rod of iron, and the arm of God a brittle reed.
How often do men tremble at the threatenings and hectorings
of ruffians, yet will stand as stakes against the precepts and
threatenings of God, as though he had less power to preserve
us than enemies had to destroy! With what disdain doth God
speak to men infected with this humour! "Who art thou, that
thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son
of man that shall be made as grass; and forgettest the Lord thy
Maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foun-
dation of the earth; and hast feared continually every day be-
cause of the fury of the oppressor?" Isa. li. 12, 13.

To fear man that is as grass, that cannot think a thought
without a Divine concourse, that cannot breathe but by a Di-
vine power, nor touch a hair without license first granted from
heaven, this is a forgetfulness, and consequently a slight of that
infinite power which has been manifested in founding the earth
and garnishing the heavens. All fear of man, in the way of
our duty, does in some sort thrust out the remembrance, and
discredit the great actions of the Creator. Would not a mighty
prince think it a disparagement to him, if his servant should
decline his command for fear of one of his subjects? And has
not the great God just cause to think himself disgraced by us,
when we deny him obedience for fear of a creature; as though
he had but an infant ability too feeble to bear us out in duty,
and incapable to balance the strength of an arm of flesh?

It is contemned by trusting in ourselves, in means, in man,
more than in God. This is the case, when in any distress we
will try every creature-refuge, before we have recourse to God;
and when we apply ourselves to him, we do it with such slight
and perfunctory frames, and with so much despondency, as if
we despaired either of his ability or will to help us; and im-
plore him with cooler affections than we solicit creatures: or,
when in a disease we depend upon the virtue of the medicine,

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

Ill

the ability of the physician, and reflect not upon that power
that endued the medicine with that virtue, and supports the
quality in it, and concurs to the operation of it; or when we
depend upon the activity of the means, as if they had power
originally in themselves, and not derivatively, and do not eye
the power of God animating and assisting them. We cannot
expect relief from any thing with a neglect of God, but we
render it in our thoughts more powerful than God: we acknow-
ledge a greater fulness in a shallow stream than in an eternal
spring; we do in effect depose the true God, and create to our-
selves a new one: we assert by such a kind of acting, the crea-
ture, if not superior, yet equal with God and independent on
him. When we trust in our own strength, without begging his
assistance, or boast of our own strength, without acknowledg-
ing his concurrence, as the Assyrian, " By the strength of my
hand I have done it — 1 have put down the inhabitants like a
valiant man," Isa. x. 13. It is as if the axe should boast itself
against him that hews therewith, and think itself more mighty
than the arm that wields it, verse 15, when we trust in others
more than in God. Thus God upbraids those by the prophet
that sought help from Egypt, telling them the Egyptians were
men and not God, Isa. xxxi. 3; intimating that by their de-
pendence on them, they rendered them gods and not men, and
advanced them from the state of creatures to that of almighty
deities. It is to set a pile of dust, a heap of ashes, above him
that created and preserves the world. To trust in a creature,
is to make it as infinite as God; to do that which is impossible
in itself to be done. God himself cannot make a creature in-
finite, for that were to make him God.

It is also contemned when we ascribe what we receive to
the power of instruments, and not to the power of God. Men,
in whatsoever they do for us, are but the tools whereby the
Creator works. Is it not a disgrace to the limner to admire his
pencil, and not himself? to the artificer, to admire his file and
engines, and not his power? It is not I, says Paul, that labour,
but the grace, the efficacious grace of God which is in me.
Whatsoever good we do is from him, not from ourselves; to
ascribe it to ourselves, or to instruments, is to overlook and
contemn his power.

Unbelief of the gospel is a contempt and disowning of Di-
vine power. This perfection has been discovered in the concep-
tion of Christ, the union of the two natures, his resurrection
from the grave, the restoration of the world, and the conver-
sion of men, more than in the creation of the world. Then
what a disgrace is unbelief to all that power, that so severely
punished the Jews for the rejecting of the gospel; turned so
many nations from their beloved superstitions: humbled the

112 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

power of princes and the wisdom of philosophers; chased
devils from their temples by the weakness of fishermen; planted
the standard of the gospel against the common notions and in-
veterate customs of the world! What a disgrace is unbelief to
this power, which has preserved Christianity from being extin-
guished by the force of men and devils, and kept it flourishing
in the midst of sword, fire, and executioners; that has made
the simplicity of the gospel overpower the eloquence of ora-
tors, and multiplied it from the ashes of martyrs, when it was
destitute of all human assistances! Not heartily to believe and
embrace that doctrine which has been attended with such
marks of power, is a high reflection upon this Divine perfection,
so highly manifested in the first publication, propagation, and
preservation of it.

But the power of God is abused, as well as contemned.

It is so when we make use of it to justify contradictions
The doctrine of transubstantiation is an abuse of this power.
When the maintainers of it cannot answer the absurdities
alleged against it, they have recourse to the power of God. It
implies a contradiction, that the same body should be on earth
and in heaven at the same instant of time; that it should be at
the right hand of God, and in the mouth and stomach of a man;
that it should be a body of flesh, and yet bread to the eye and
to the taste; that it should be visible and invisible, a glorious
body, and yet gnawed by the teeth of a creature ; that it should
be multiplied in a thousand places, and yet an entire body in
every one, where there is no member to be seen, no flesh to be
tasted; that it should be above us in the highest heavens, and
yet within us in our lower bowels: such contradictions as these
are an abuse of the power of God.

Again, we abuse this power when we believe every idle
story that is reported, because God is able to make it so, if he
pleased. We may as well believe JEsop's Fables to be true,
that birds spake and beasts reasoned, because the power of God
can enable such creatures to such acts. God's power is not the
rule of our belief of a thing without the exercise of it in matter
of fact, and the declaration of it upon sufficient evidence.

The power of God is abused, by presuming on it, without
using the means he has appointed. When men sit with folded
arms, and make a confidence in his power a glorious title to
their idleness and disobedience; they would have his strength
do all, and his precept should move them to do nothing: this
is a trust of his power against his command, a pretended glori-
fying his power with a slight of his sovereignty. Though God
be almighty, yet for the most part he exercises his might in
giving life and success to second causes and lawful endeavours.
When we stay in the mouth of danger, without any call order-

ON THE POWER OF GOD. JJ3

ing us to continue, and against a door of providence opened
for our rescue, and sanctuary ourselves in the power of God
without any promise, without any providence conducting us;
this is not to glorify the Divine might, but to neglect it, in ne-
glecting the means which his power affords to us for our escape;
to condemn it to our humours, to work miracles for us accord-
ing to our wills, and against his own.1 God could have sent a
worm to be Herod's executioner, when he sought the life of
our Saviour, or employed an angel from heaven to have tied,
his hands or stopped his breath, and not put Joseph upon a
flight to Egypt with our Saviour; yet had it not been an abuse
of the power of God, for Joseph to have neglected the precept,
and slighted the means God gave him for the preserving his
own life and that of the child? Christ himself, when the Jews
consulted to destroy him, presumed not upon the power of
God to secure him, but used ordinary means for his preserva-
tion, by walking no more openly, but retiring into a city near
the wilderness till the hour was come, and the call of his Father
made manifest, John xi. 53, 54. A rash running upon dan-
ger, though for the truth itself, is a presuming upon, and con-
sequently an abuse of this power; a proud challenging it to
serve our turns against the authority of his will and the force
of his precept: a not resting in his ordinate power, but de-
manding his absolute power to please our follies and pre-
sumption ; concluding and expecting more from it than what is
authorized by his will.

[9.] If infinite power be a peculiar property of God, how
miserable will all wicked rebels be under this power of God!
Men may break his laws, but not impair his arm; they may
slight his word, but cannot resist his power. If he swear that
he will sweep a place with the besom of destruction, as he has
thought so shall it come to pass, and as he has purposed so
shall it stand, Isa. xiv. 23, 24. Rebels against an earthly prince
may exceed him in strength, and be more powerful than their
sovereign: none can equal God, much less exceed him. As
none can exercise an act of hostility against him without his
permissive will; so none can struggle from under his hand
without his positive will. He has an arm not to be moved, a
hand not to be wrung aside. God is represented on his throne
like a jasper stone, Rev. iv. 3, as one of invincible power when
he comes to judge : the jasper is a stone which withstands the
greatest force.2 Though men resist the order of his laws, they
cannot resist the sentence of their punishment, nor the execu-
tion of it. None can any more exempt themselves from the
arm of his strength, than they can from the authority of his
dominion. As they must bow to his sovereignty; so they must

1 Harwood, p. 13. 2 Grot, in lor.

114 0N THE POWER OF GOD.

sink under his force. A prisoner in this world may make his
escape, but a prisoner in the world to come cannot; " There is
none that can deliver out of thine hand," Job. x. 7. There is
none to deliver when he tears in pieces, Psal. 1. 22. His
strength is uncontrollable; hence his throne is represented as a
fiery flame, Dan. vii. 9; as a spark of fire has power to kindle
one thing after another, and increase till it consumes a forest, a
city, swallow up all combustible matter, till it consumes a
world, and many worlds, if they were in being. What power
has a tree to resist the fire, though it seems mighty when it
outbraves the winds ? What man to this day has been able to
free himself from that chain of death, God clapped upon him
for his revolt? And if he be too feeble to rescue himself from
a temporal, much less from an eternal death. The devils have
to this minute groaned under the pile of wrath, without any
success in delivering themselves by all their strength, which
much surmounts all the strength of mankind; nor have they
any hopes to work their rescue to eternity.
. How foolish is every sinner! Can we poor worms strut it out
against infinite power? We cannot resist the meanest creatures
when God commissions them, and puts a sword into their hands.
They will not, no, not the worms, be startled at the glory of a
king, when they have their Creator's warrant to be his execu-
tioners, Act xii. 23. Who can withstand him, when he com-
mands the waves and inundations of the sea to leap over the
shore ; when he divides the ground in earthquakes, and makes
it gape wide to swallow the inhabitants of it; when the air is
corrupted to breed pestilences; when storms and showers un-
seasonably falling, putrify the fruit of the earth; what created
power can mend the matter, and with a prevailing voice say to
him, What dost thou?

There are two attributes God will make glisten even in hell
to the full, his wrath and his power: " What if God, willing to
show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with
much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction?"
Rom. ix. 22. If it were mere wrath, and no power to second
it, it were not so terrible; but it is wrath and power, both are
joined together: it is not only a sharp sword, but a powerful
arm; and not only that, for then it were well for the damned
creature. To have many sharp blows, and from a strong arm,
this may be without putting forth the highest strength a man
has. But in this God makes it his design to make his power
known and conspicuous; he takes the sword (as it were) into
both hands, that he may show the strength of his arm in strik-
ing the harder blow; and therefore the apostle calls it the glory
of his power, Thess. i. 9, which puts a sting into this wrath;

ON THE POWER OF GOD. | j 5

and it is called the fierceness of the wrath of the Almighty, Rev.
xix. 15. God will do it in such a manner, as to make men
sensible of his almightiness in every stroke. How great must
that vengeance be, that is backed by all the strength of God!
When there will be a powerful wrath without a powerful
compassion; when all his power shall be exercised in pun-
ishing, and not the least mite of it exercised in pitying; how
irresistible will be the load of such a weighty hand! How can
the dust of the balance break the mighty bars, or get out of the
lists of a powerful vengeance, or hope for any grain of comfort!
Oh, that every obstinate sinner would think of this, and consider
his immeasurable boldness in thinking himself able to grapple
with omnipotence! What force can any have to resist the pre-
sence of him, before whom rocks melt, and the heavens at
length shall be shrivelled up as a parchment by the last fire?
As the light of God's face is too dazzling to be beheld by us;
so the arm of his power is too mighty to be opposed by us. His
almightiness is above the reach of our potsherd strength, as his
infiniteness is above the capacity of our purblind understandings.
God were not omnipotent, if his power could be rendered inef-
fectual by any.

Use (2.) A second use of this point from the consideration of
the infinite power of God, is of comfort. As omnipotence is an
ocean that cannot be fathomed; so the comforts from it are
streams that cannot be exhausted. What joy can be wanting
to him that finds himself folded in the arms of omnipotence?

This perfection is made over to believers in the covenant, as
well as any other attribute; I am the Lord your God; therefore
that power which is as essential to the Godhead as any other
perfection of his nature, is in the rights and extent of it assured
unto you. Nay, may we not say, it is made over more than
any other, because it is that which animates every other per-
fection, and is the Spirit that gives them motion and appearance
in the world? If God had expressed himself in particular, as, I
am a true God, a wise God, a loving God, a righteous God, I
am yours; what would all or any of those have signified, unless
the other also had been implied, as, I am an almighty God, I
am your God? In God's making over himself in any particular
attribute, this of his power is included in every one, without
which all his other grants would be insignificant. It is a com-
fort that power is in the hand of God; it can never be better
placed, for he can never use his power to injure his confiding
creature: if it were in our own hands, we might use it to injure
ourselves. It is a power in the hand of an indulgent Father,
not a hard-hearted tyrant; it is a just power, his " right hand is
full of righteousness," Psal. xlviii. 10; because of his righteous-
ness he can never use it ill, and because of his wisdom he can

UQ ON THE POWER OF GOD.

never use it unseasonably. Men that have strength, often mis-
place the actings of it, because of their folly; and sometimes
employ it to base ends, because of their wickedness. But this
power in God is always awakened by goodness and conducted
by wisdom; it is never exercised by self-will and passion, but
according to the immutable rule of his own nature, which is
righteousness. How comfortable is it to think that you have a
God that can do what he pleases; nothing so difficult but he can
effect, nothing so strong but he can overrule ! You need not
dread men, since you have one to restrain them; nor fear devils,
since you have one to chain them. No creature but is influ-
enced by this power; no creature but must fall upon the with-
drawing of this power. It was not all laid out in creation; it is
not weakened by his preservation of things; he yet has a fulness
of power, and a residue of spirit: and for whom should that
eternal arm of the Lord be displayed, and that incomprehensi-
ble thunder of his power be shot out, but for those for whose
sake and for whose comfort it is revealed in his word?

In particular,

[1.] Here is comfort in all afflictions and distresses. Our
evils can never be so great to oppress us, as his power is great
to deliver us. The same power that brought a world out of a
chaos, and constituted, and has hitherto preserved the regular
motion of the stars, can bring order out of our confusion, and
light out of our darkness. When our Saviour was in the
greatest distress, and beheld the face of his Father frowning
while he was upon the cross, in his complaint to him he exer-
cises faith upon his power, " Eli, Eli — My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me?" Matt, xxvii. 46; that is, "My
Strong, my Strong;" El, is a name of power, belonging to
God: Christ comforts himself in his power, while he complains
of his frowns. Follow his pattern, and forget not that power
that can scatter the clouds, as well as gather them together.
The psalmist's support in his distress was in the creative power
of God; " My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven
and earth," Psal. cxxi. 2.

[2.] It is comfort in all strong and stirring corruptions and
mighty temptations. It is by this we may arm ourselves, and
be strong in the power of his might, Eph. vi. 10. By this we
may conquer principalities and powers jas dreadful as hell, but
not so mighty as heaven. By this we may triumph over lusts
within, too strong for an arm of flesh. By this the devils that
have possessed us may be cast out, the battered walls of our
souls may be repaired, and the sons of Anak laid fiat. That
power that brought light out of darkness, and overmastered
the deformity of the chaos, and set bounds to the ocean, and
dried up the Red sea by a rebuke, can quell the tumults in our

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

117

spirits, and level spiritual Goliahs by his word. When the
disciples heard that terrifying speech of our Saviour, concern-
ing rich men, that it was " easier for a camel to go through the
eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom
of God," Matt. xix. 24, to entertain the gospel, which com-
manded self-denial, and that, because of the allurements of the
world, and the strong habits in their soul; Christ refers them
to the power of God, ver. 26, who could expel those ill habits,
and plant good ones; "With men this is impossible, but with
God all things are possible." There is no resistance, but he
can surmount; no strong hold, but he can demolish; no tower,
but he can level.

[3.] It is comfort from hence, that all promises shall be per-
formed. Goodness is sufficient to make a promise, but power
is necessary to perform a promise. Men that are honest, can-
not often make good their words, because something may in-
tervene that may shorten their ability; but nothing can disable
God, without diminishing his Godhead. He has an infinite-
ness of power to accomplish his word, as well as an infiniteness
of goodness to make and utter his word. That might whereby
he made heaven and earth, and his keeping truth for ever, are
joined together, Psal. cxlvi. 5, 6. His Father's faithfulness
and his creative power are linked together. It is upon this
basis the covenant, and every part of it, is established, and
stands as firm as the almightiness of God, whereby he reared
the earth and the heavens. No power can resist his will,
Rom. ix. 19. Who can disannul his purpose, and turn back
his hand when it is stretched out? Isa. xiv. 27. His word is
unalterable, and his power is invincible. He could not deceive
himself, for he knew his own strength when he promised.
No unexpected event can change his resolution, because no-
thing can happen without the compass of his foresight. No
created strength can stop him in his action, because all crea-
tures are ready to serve him at his command; not the devils
in hell, nor all the wicked men on earth, since he has strength
to restrain them, and an arm to punish them. What can be
too hard for him that created heaven and earth? Hence it
was, that when God promised any thing anciently to his peo-
ple, he used often the name of the Almighty, the Lord that
created heaven and earth, as that which was an undeniable
answer to any objection, against any thing that might be made
against the greatness and stupendousness of any promise; by
that name in all his works of grace was he known to them,
Exod. vi. 3. When we are sure of his will, we need not ques-
tion his strength, since he never over-engages himself above
his ability. He that could not be resisted by nothing in crea-
tion, nor vanquished by devils in redemption, can never want
Vol. II.— 16

118 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

power to glorify his faithfulness in his accomplishment of what-
soever he has promised.

[4.] From this infiniteness of power in God we have ground
of assurance for perseverance. Since conversion is likened to
the works of creation and resurrection, two great marks of his
strength, he does not surely employ himself in the first work
of changing the heart, to let any created strength baffle that
power which he began and intends to glorify. It was this
might that struck off the chain, and expelled that strong one
that possessed you. What if you are too weak to keep him
out of his lost possession, will God lose the glory of his first
strength, by suffering his foiled adversary to make a re-entry,
and regain his former usurpation? his outstretched arm will not
do less by his spiritual, than it did by his national Israel. It
guarded them all the way to Canaan, and left them not to shift
for themselves, after he had struck off the fetters of Egypt, and
buried their enemies in the Red Sea, Deut. i. 31. This great-
ness of the Father above all, our Saviour makes the ground of
believers' continuance for ever, against the blasts of hell and
engines of the world. " My Father is greater than all, and no
man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand," John x.
29. Our keeping is not in our own weak hands, but in the
hands of him who is mighty to save. That power of God keeps
us which intends our salvation. In all fears of falling away,
shelter yourselves in the power of God. " He shall be liolden
up," says the apostle, speaking concerning one weak in faith;
and no other reason is rendered by him but this, "for God is
able to make him stand," Rom. xiv. 4.

From this attribute of the infinite power of God, we have a
ground of comfort in the lowest estate of the church. Let the
state of the church be never so deplorable, the condition never
so desperate, that power that created the world, and shall raise
the bodies of men, can create a happy state for the church, and
raise her from an overwhelming grave. Though the enemies
trample upon her, they cannot upon the arm that holds her,
which by the least motion of it, can lift her up above the heads
of her adversaries, and make them feel the thunder of that
power that none can understand: "By the blast of God they
perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed,"
Job iv. 9; they shall be scattered as chaff before the wind. If
once he draw his hand out of his bosom, all must fly before
him, or sink under him, Psal. lxxiv. 11. And when there is
none to help, his own arm sustains him and brings salvation,
and his fury doth uphold him, Isa. lxiii. 5. What if the church
totter under the underminings of hell! what if it has a sad
heart and wet eyes! in what a little moment can he "make the
night turn into day, and make the Jews that were preparing

ON THE POWER OF GOD. \ ] 9

for death in Shushan, triumph over the necks of their enemies,
and march in one hour with swords in their hands, that expect-
ed the last hour ropes about their necks! Esth. ix. 1. 5. If Israel
be pursued by Pharaoh, the sea shall open its arms to protect
them: if they be thirsty, a rock shall spout out water to refresh
them: if they be hungry, heaven shall be their granary for
manna: if Jerusalem be besieged, and has not force enough to
encounter Sennacherib, an angel shall turn the camp into an
aceldama, a field of blood. His people shall not want deliver-
ances, till God want a power of working miracles for their
security: he is more jealous of his power than the church can
be of her safety. And if we should want other arguments to
press him, we may implore him by virtue of his power; for
when there is nothing in the church as a motive to him to save
it, there is enough in his own name, and the illustration of his
power, Psal. cvi. 8. Who can grapple with the omnipotency
of that God, who is jealous of and zealous for the honour of
it? And therefore God, for the most part, takes such opportu-
nities to deliver, wherein his almightiness may be most con-
spicuous, and his counsels most admirable. He awakened not
himself to deliver Israel, till they were upon the brink of the
Red Sea, nor to rescue the three children till they were in the
fiery furnace, nor Daniel, till he was in the lions' den. It is
in the weakness of his creature that his strength is perfected;
not in a way of addition of perfectness to it, but in a way of
manifestation of the perfection of it. As it is the perfection of
the sun to shine and enlighten the world, not that the sun re-
ceives an increase of light by the darting of his beams, but
discovers his glory to the admiration of men, and pleasure of
the world. If it were not for such occasions, the world would
not regard the mightiness of God, nor know what power were
in him. It traverses the stage in its fulness and liveliness upon
such occasions, when the enemies are strong, and their strength
edged with an intense hatred, and but little time between the
contrivance and execution. It is the great comfort that the
lowest distresses of the church are a fit scene for the discovery
of this attribute, and that the glory of God's omnipotence, and
the church's security, are so straitly linked together. It is a
promise that will never be forgotten by God, and ought never
to be forgotten by us, that "in this mountain shall the hand of
the Lord rest;" that is, the power of the Lord shall abide;
" and Moab shall be trodden down under him, even as straw is
trodden down for the dunghill," Isa. xxv. 10. And the plagues
of Babylon shall " come in one day, death, and mourning, and
famine; for strong is the Lord who judgeth her," Rev. xviii. 8.

Use. (3.) The third use is for exhortation.

[1.] Meditate on this power of God, and press it often upon

120 0N THE POWER OF GOD.

your minds. We conclude many things of God that we do not
practically suck the comfort of, for want of deep thoughts of it,
and frequent inspection into it. We believe God to be true,
yet distrust him; we acknowledge him powerful, yet fear the
motion of every straw. Many truths, though assented to in
our understandings, are kept under hatches by corrupt affec-
tions, and have not their due influence, because they are not
brought forth into the open air of our souls by meditation. If
we will but search our hearts, we shall find it is the power of
God we often doubt of. When the heart of Ahaz and his sub-
jects trembled at the combination of the Syrian and Israelitish
kings against him, for want of a confidence in the power of
God, God sends his prophet with commission to work a miracu-
lous sign at his own choice, to rear up his fainting heart; and
when he refused to ask a sign out of diffidence of that almighty
power, the prophet complains of it as an affront to his Master,
Isa. vii. 12, 13. Moses, so great a friend of God, was overta-
ken with this kind of unbelief, after all the experiments of
God's miraculous acts in Egypt: the answer God gives him
manifests this to be at the core; "Is the Lord's hand waxed
short?" Numb. xi. 23.

For want of actuated thoughts of this, we are many times
turned from our known duty by the blast of a creature; as
though man had more power to dismay us, than God has to
support us in his commanded way. The belief of God's power
is one of the first steps to all religion ; without settled thoughts
of it, we cannot pray in a lively and believing manner, for the
obtaining the mercies we want, or the averting the evils we
fear: we should not love him, unless we are persuaded he has
a power to bless us; nor fear him, unless we were persuaded
of his power to punish us. The frequent thoughts of this
would render our faith more stable, and our hopes more stead-
fast; it would make us more feeble to sin, and more careful to
obey. When the virgin staggered at the message of the angel,
that she should bear a son, he in his answer turns her to the
creative power of God; "The power of the Highest shall over-
shadow thee," Luke i. 35; which seems to be in allusion to
the Spirit's moving upon the face of the deep, and bringing a
comely world out of a confused mass. Is it harder for God to
make a virgin conceive a son by the power of his Spirit, than
to make a world? Why does he reveal himself so often under
the title of Almighty, and press it upon us, but that we should
press it upon ourselves? And shall we be forgetful of that,
which every thing about us, every thing within us, is a mark
of? How come we by a power of seeing and hearing, a faculty
and act of understanding and will, but by this power framing
us, this power assisting us? What though the thunder of his

ON THE POWER OF GOD. 121

power cannot be understood, no more can any other perfection
of his nature; shall we therefore seldom think of it? The sea
cannot be fathomed, yet the merchant excuses not himself from
sailing upon the surface of it. We cannot glorify God, without
due consideration of this attribute; for his power is his glory as
much as any other, and called both by the name of glory, Rom.
vi. 4, speaking of Christ's resurrection by the glory of the
Father, and also the riches of his glory, Eph. iii. 16. Those
that have strong temptations in their course, and over-pressing
corruptions in their hearts, have need to think of it out of inte-
rest, since nothing but this can relieve them. Those that have
experimented the working of it in their new creation, are
obliged to think of it out of gratitude. It was this mighty
power over himself that gave rise to all that pardoning grace
already conferred, or hereafter expected; without it our souls
had been consumed, the world overturned; we could not have
expected a happy heaven, but have lain yelling in an eternal
hell, had not the power of his mercy exceeded that of his jus-
tice, and his infinite power executed what his infinite wisdom
had contrived for our redemption. How much also should we
be raised in our admiration of God, and ravish ourselves in
contemplating that might that can raise innumerable worlds in
those infinite imaginary spaces without this globe of heaven
and earth, and exceed inconceivably what he has done in the
creation of this!

[2.] From the pressing the consideration of this upon our-
selves, let us be induced to trust God upon the account of his
power. The main end of the revelation of his power to the
patriarchs, and of the miraculous operations of it in Egypt, was
to induce them to an entire reposing themselves in God : and
the psalmist does scarce speak of the Divine omnipotence with-
out making this inference from it; and scarce exhorts to a trust
in God, but backs it with a consideration of his power in crea-
tion, it being the chief support of the soul: " Happy is he —
whose hope is in the Lord his God: which made heaven, and
earth, the sea, and all that therein is," Psal. cxlvi. 5, 6. That
power is invincible that drew the world out of nothing; nothing
can happen to us harder than the making the world without
the concurrence of instruments: no difficulty can master that
strength, that has drawn all things out of nothing, or out of a
confused matter next to nothing: no power can rifle what we
commit to him, 2 Tim. i. 12. He is all power, above the reach
of all power; all other powers in the world flow from him, or
depend on him. He is worthy to be trusted, since we know
him true, without ever breaking his word, and omnipotent,
never failing of his purpose; and a confidence in it is the chief
act whereby we can glorify this power, and credit his arm. A

J 22 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

strong God, and a weak faith in omnipotence, do not suit well
together. Indeed we are more engaged to a trust in Divine
power than the ancient patriarchs were: they had the verbal
declaration of his power, and many of them little other evidence
of it, than in the creation of the world; and their faith in God
being established in this first discovery of his omnipotence, drew
out itself further to believe, that whatsoever God promised by
his word, he was able to perform, as well as the creation of the
world out of nothing; which seems to be the intention of the
apostle, Heb. xi. 3. Not barely to speak of the creation of the
world by God, which was a thing the Hebrews understood well
enough from their ancient oracles; but to show the foundation
of the patriarch's faith, namely, God making the world by his
word, and what use they made of the discovery of his power in
that, to lead them to believe the promise of God concerning the
Seed of the woman to be brought into the world. But we have
not only the same foundation, but superadded demonstrations
of this attribute in the conception of our Saviour, the union of
the two natures, the glorious redemption, the propagation of the
gospel, and the new creation of the world. They relied upon
the naked power of God, without those more illustrious appear-
ances of it, which have been in the ages since. We have the
wonderful effects of that which they had but obscure expecta-
tions of.

Consider, trust in God can never be without taking in God's
power as a concurrent foundation with his truth. It is the main
ground of trust, and so set forth in the prophet; "Trust ye in
the Lord for ever; for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting
strength," Isa. xxvi. 4. And the faith of the ancients, so re-
commended, Heb. xi., had this chiefly for its ground; and the
faith in gospel times is called a trusting on his arm, Isa. li. 5.
All the attributes of God are the objects of our veneration, but
they do not equally contribute to the producing trust in our
hearts; his eternity, simplicity, infmiteness, ravish and aston-
ish our minds when we consider them;1 but there is no immedi-
ate tendency in their nature to allure us to a confidence in him,
no, not in an innocent state; much less in a lapsed and revolted
condition; but the other perfections of his nature, as his holiness,
righteousness, mercy, are amiable to us in regard of the imme-
diate operations of them upon and about the creature, and so
have something in their own nature to allure us to repose our-
selves in him: but yet those cannot engage to an entire trust in
him, without reflecting upon his ability, which only can render
those useful and successful to the creature. For whatsoever
bars stand in the way of his holy, righteous, and merciful pro-
ceedings towards his creatures, are not overmastered by those

' Amyrant. Moral, torn. 5. p. 170.

ON THE POWER OF GOD.

123

perfections, but by that strength of his which only can relieve
us in concurrence with the other attributes. How could his
mercy succour us without his arm, or his wisdom guide us
without his hand, or his truth perform promises to us without
his strength ? As no attribute can act without it, so in our ad-
dresses to him upon the account of any particular perfection in
the Godhead according to our indigency, one eye must be per-
petually fixed upon this of his power; and our faith would be
feeble and dispirited without eyeing this. Without this, his
holiness, which hates sin, would not be regarded; and his mercy,
pitying a grieving sinner, would not be valued. As this power
is the ground of a wicked man's fear, so it is the ground of a
good man's trust. This was that which was the principal sup-
port of Abraham, not barely his promise, but his ability to make
it good, Rom. iv. 21; and when he was commanded to sacrifice
Isaac, the ability of God to raise him up again, Heb. xi. 19.
All faith would droop, and be in the mire, without leaning upon
this. All those attributes which we consider as moral in God,
would have no influence upon us, without this, which we con-
sider physically in God. Though we value the kindness men
may express to us in our distresses, yet we make them not the
objects of our confidence, unless they have an ability to act what
they express. There can be no trust in God without an eye to
his power.

Sometimes the power of God is the sole object of trust. As
when we have no promise to assure us of his will, we have
nothing else to pitch upon but his ability; and that not his
absolute power, but his ordinate, in the way of his providence;
we must not trust in it so, as to expect he should please our
humour with fresh miracles, but rest upon his power, and
leave the manner to his will. Asa, when ready to conflict
with the vast Ethiopian army, pleaded nothing else but this
power of God, 2 Chron. xiv. 11. And the three children, who
had no particular promise of deliverance, (that we read of,)
stuck to God's ability to preserve them against the king's
threatening, and owned it in the face of the king, yet with
some kind of inward intimations in their own spirits that he
would also deliver them; " Our God whom we serve is able to
deliver us from the burning fiery furnace," Dan. iii. 17. And
accordingly the fire burnt the cords that tied them^ without
singeing any thing else about them. But when this power
has been exercised upon like occasions, it is a precedent he
has given us to rest upon. Precedents in law are good pleas,
and strong encouragements to the client to expect success in
his suit. " Our fathers trusted in thee — and thou didst deliver
them," says David, Psal. xxii. 4. And Jehoshaphat in a case
of distress, " Art not thou our God, who didst drive out the

j 24 ON THE POWER OF GOD.

inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel?" 2 Chron.
xx. 7. When we have not any statute law and promise to
plead, we may plead his power, together with the former pre-
cedents and acts of it. The centurion had nothing else to act
upon, but the power of Christ, and some evidences of it in the
miracles reported of him; but he is silent in the latter, and
casts himself only upon the former, acknowledging that Christ
had the same command over diseases, as himself had over his
soldiers, Matt. viii. 8, 9. And our Saviour, when he receives
the petition of the blind men, requires no more of them in order
to a cure, but a belief of his ability to perform it; " Believe ye
that I am able to do this?" Matt. ix. 28. His will is not
known but by revelation, but his power is apprehended by rea-
son, as essentially and eternally linked with the notion of a
God. God also is jealous of the honour of this attribute; and
since it is so much virtually discredited, he is pleased when any
do cordially own it, and entirely resign themselves to the assist-
ance of it.

Well then, in all duties where faith is particularly to be
acted, forget not this as the main prop of it : do you pray for a
flourishing and triumphing grace ? Consider him as able to
make all grace to abound in you, 2 Cor. ix. S. Do you want
comfort and reviving under your contritions and godly sorrow ?
consider him as he declares himself, " The high and lofty One,"
Isa. lvii. 15. Are you under pressing distresses? take the
advice of Eliphaz to Job, when he tells him what he himself
would do if he were in his case; " I would seek unto God, and
unto God would I commit my cause," Job v. 8; but observe
under what consideration, as to one that " doeth great things
and unsearchable; marvellous things without number," ver. 9.
When you beg of him the melting your rocky hearts, the dash-
ing in pieces your strong corruptions, the drawing his beautiful
image in your soul, the quickening your dead hearts, and revi-
ving your drooping spirits, and supplying your spiritual wants,
consider him as one able to do abundantly, not only above
what you can ask, but above what you can think, Eph. iii. 20.
Faith will be spiritless, and prayer will be lifeless, if power be
not eyed by us in those things which cannot be done without
an arm of Omnipotence.

[3.] This doctrine teaches us humility and submission. The
vast disproportion between the mightiness of God and the
meanness of a creature, inculcates the lesson of humility in his
presence. How becoming is humility under a mighty hand !
1 Pet. v. 6. What is an infant in a giant's hand, or a lamb in
a lion's paw? Submission to irresistible power is the best
policy, and the best security: this gratifies and draws out good-
ness, whereas murmuring and resistance exasperate and sharpen

ON THE POWER OF GOD. J25

power. We sanctify his name and glorify his strength by fall-
ing down before it; it is an acknowledgment of his invisible
strength, and our inability to match it. How low should we
therefore lie before him, against whose power our pride and
murmuring can do no good, who can outwrestle us in our con-
tests, and always overcome when he judges! Rom. iii. 4.

[4.] This doctrine teaches us, not to fear the pride and force
of man. How unreasonable is it, to fear a limited above an
unbounded power ! How unbecoming is the fear of man in
him, who has an interest in a strength able to curb the strongest
devils ! Who would tremble at the threats of a dwarf, that
has a mighty and watchful giant for his guard? If God does
but arise, his enemies are scattered, Psal. lxviii. 1; the least
motion makes them fly before him; it is no difficult thing for
him, that made them by a word, to unmake their designs, and
shiver them in pieces by the breath of his mouth. He brings
princes to nothing, and makes the judges of the earth vanity;
they wither when he blows upon them, and their stock shall
not take root in the earth. He can command a whirlwind to
take them away as stubble, Isa. xl. 23, 24. Yea, with the
shaking of his hand, he makes servants to become rulers of
those that were their masters, Zech. ii. 9. Whole nations are
no more in his hands than a morning cloud, or the dew upon
the ground, or the chaff before the wind, or the smoke against
the motion of the air, which though it appear out of a chimney
like a black invincible cloud, is quickly dispersed, and becomes
invisible, Hos. xiii. 3. How inconsiderable are the most mighty
to his strength, which can puff away a whole world of proud
grasshoppers, and a whole sky of daring clouds! He that by
his word masters the rage of the sea, can overrule the pride
and power of men. Where is the fury of the oppressor ? It
cannot overleap the bounds he has set it, nor march an inch
beyond the point he has prescribed it. Fear not the confede-
racies of man, but "sanctify the Lord of hosts himself; and let
him be your fear, and let him be your dread," Isa. viii. 13. To
fear men is to dishonour the name of God, and regard him as a
feeble Lord, and not as the Lord of hosts, who is mighty in
strength, so that they that harden themselves against him shall
not prosper.

[5.] Therefore this doctrine teaches us the fear of God. The
prophet Jeremiah counts it. as an impossible thing for men to
be destitute of the fear of God, when they seriously consider
his name to be great and mighty: "Thou art great, and thy
name is great in might. Who would not fear thee, 0 King of
nations?" Jer. vi. 7. Shall we not tremble at his presence,
who has placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpet-
ual decree; that though the waves thereof toss themselves,
Vol. II.— 17

126 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

yet they cannot prevail ? Jer. v. 22. He can arm the weakest
creature for our destruction, and disarm the strongest creatures
for our preservation. He can command a hair, a crumb, a
kernel to go awry, and strangle us. He can make the heavens
brass over our head, stop close the bottles of the clouds, and
make the fruit of the fields droop, when there is a small dis-
tance to the harvest: he can arm men's wit, wealth, hands
against themselves: he can turn our sweet morsels into bitter,
and our own consciences into devouring lions: he can root up
cities by moles, and conquer the proudest by lice and worms.
The omnipotence of God is not only the object of a believer's
trust, but a believer's fear. It is from the consideration of this
power only, that our Saviour presses his disciples, whom he
entitles his friends, to fear God; which lesson he presses by a
double repetition, and with a kind of asseveration, without
rendering any other reason than this of the ability of God to
cast into hell, Luke xii. 5. We are to fear him because he can,
but bless his goodness because he will not. In regard of his
omnipotence, he is to be reverenced, not only by mortal men,
but by the blessed angels, who are past the fear of any danger
by his power, being confirmed in a happy state by his unalter-
able grace. When they adore him for his holiness, they rever-
ence him for his power with covered faces: the title of the
Lord of hosts is joined in their reverential praise with that of
his holiness, " Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts," Isa. vi. 3.
How should we adore that power which can preserve us, when
devils and men conspire to destroy us! How should we stand
in awe of that power which can destroy us, though angels and
men should combine to preserve us! The parts of his ways
which are discovered, are sufficient motives to an humble and
reverential adoration: but who can fear and adore him accord-
ing to the vastness of his power, and his excellent greatness,
since "the thunder of his power who can understand?"

DISCOURSE XL

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

Exod. xv. 11. — Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among' the gods? Who is like
thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders!

This verse is one of the loftiest descriptions of the majesty and
excellency of God in the whole Scripture. l It is a part of
Moses's 'Erttvi'xiov, or triumphant song, after a great and real,

1 Trap, in loc.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 127

and a typical victory; in the womb of which all the deliverances
of the church were couched. It is the first song upon holy re-
cord, and it consists of gratulatory and prophetic matter: it
casts a look backward, to what God did for them in their de-
liverance from Egypt; and a look forward, to what God shall
do for the church in future ages. That deliverance was but a
rough draught of something more excellent to be wrought
towards the closing up of the world; when his plagues shall be
poured out upon the anti- christian powers, which should revive
the same song of Moses in the church, as fitted so many ages
before for such a scene of affairs, Rev. xv. 3. It is observed,
therefore, that many words in this song are put in the future
tense, noting a time to come; and the very first word, ver. 1,
" Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song," is,
"shall sing;" implying, that it was composed and calculated
for the celebrating some greater action of God's, which was
to be wrought in the world. Upon this account some of the
Jewish rabbins, from the consideration of this remark, asserted
the doctrine of the resurrection to be meant in this place; that
Moses and those Israelites should rise again to sing the same
song, for some greater miracles God should work, and greater
triumphs he should bring forth, exceeding those wonders at
their deliverance from Egypt. x

It consists of, a. preface, ver. 1, "I will sing unto the Lord."2
An historical narration of matter of fact, ver. 3, 4, " Pha-
raoh's chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea;" which
he ascribes solely to God, ver. 6. " Thy right hand, 0 Lord,
is become glorious in power: thy right hand, 0 Lord, hath
dashed in pieces the enemy;" which he does prophetically, as
respecting something to be done in after-times; or further, for
the completing of that deliverance; or, as others think, respect-
ing their entering into Canaan; for the words in these two
verses are put in the future tense. The manner of the deli-
verance is described ver. S. " The floods stood upright as an
heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea."
In the 9th verse, he magnifies the victory from the vainglory
and security of the enemy; " The enemy said, I will pursue, I
will overtake, I will divide the spoil," &c. And ver. 16, he
prophetically describes the fruit of this victory, in the influence
it shall have upon those nations, by whose confines they were
to travel to the promised land; " Fear and dread shall fall upon
them; by the greatness of thine arm they shall be as still as a
stone ; till thy people pass over — which thou hast purchased."
The phrase of this, and of the 17th and 18th verses, seems to
be more magnificent, than to design only the bringing the
Israelites to the earthly Canaan : but seems to respect the

1 Manass. Ben. Israel, de Resur. lib. 1. cap. 1. p. 7. s Pareus in Exod. xv.

}28 0N THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

gathering his redeemed ones together, to place them in the
spiritual sanctuary which he had established, wherein the Lord
should reign for ever and ever, without any enemies to disturb
his royalty; "The Lord shall reign for ever and ever," ver. 18.
The prophet, in the midst of his historical narratives, seems to
be in an ecstacy, and breaks out in a stately exaltation of God
in the text.

" Who is like unto thee, 0 Lord, among the gods?" &c. In-
terrogations are in Scripture the strongest affirmations or nega-
tions. It is here a strong affirmation of the incomparableness
of God, and a strong denial of the worthiness of all creatures
to be partners with him in the degrees of his excellency: it is
a preference of God before all creatures in holiness, to which
the purity of creatures is but a shadow, in desert of reverence
and veneration, he being fearful in praises. The angels cover
their faces when they adore him in his particular perfections.

"Among the gods." Among the idols of the nations, say
some: others say,1 it is not to be found that the heathen idols
are ever dignified with the title of strong or mighty, as the
word translated gods, doth import; and therefore understand
it of the angels, or other potentates of the world ; or rather in-
clusively, of all that are noted for, and can lay claim to the
title of strength and might upon the earth or in heaven. God
is so great and majestic, that no creature can share with him
in his praise.

" Fearful in praises." Various are the interpretations of
this passage: to be reverenced in praises; his praise ought to
be celebrated with a religious fear. Fear is the product of his
mercy as well as his justice; he hath forgiveness that he may
be feared, Psal. cxxx. 4. Or, " fearful in praises;" whom none
can praise without amazement at the considerations of his
works. None can truly praise him without being affected
with astonishment at his greatness. 2 Or, " fearful in praises;"
whom no mortal can sufficiently praise, since he is above all
praise.3 Whatsoever a human tongue can speak, or an angel-
ical understanding think of the excellency of his nature and
the greatness of his works, falls short of the vastness of the
Divine perfection. A creature's praises of God are as much
below the transcendent eminency of God, as the meanness of
a creature's being is below the eternal fulness of the Creator.
Or rather, fearful, or terrible in praises; that is, in the matter
of thy praise: and the learned Rivet concurs with me in this
sense. The works of God celebrated in this song were terri-
ble; it was the miraculous overthrow of the strength and
flower of a mighty nation: his judgments were severe, as well
as his mercy was seasonable. The word signifies glorious and

' Rivet. 2 Calvin. s Munster.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. J99

illustrious, as well as terrible and fearful. No man can hear
the praise of thy name, for those great judicial acts, without
some astonishment at thy justice, the stream — and thy holiness,
the spring of those mighty works. This seems to be the sense
of the following words, "doing wonders:" fearful in the mat-
ter of thy praise, they being wonders which thou hast done
among us and for us.

" Doing wonders." Congealing the waters by a wind, to
make them stand like walls for the rescue of the Israelites, and
melting them by a wind, for the overthrow of the Egyptians,
are prodigies that challenge the greatest adorations of that
mercy which delivered the one, and that justice which punish-
ed the other ; and of the arm of that power whereby he effect-
ed both his gracious and his righteous purposes.

Whence observe, that the judgments of God upon his ene-
mies, as well as his mercies to his people, are matter of praise.
The perfections of God appear in both. Justice and mercy are
so linked together in his acts of providence, that the one can-
not be forgotten while the other is acknowledged. He is never
so terrible as in the assemblies of his saints, and the deliver-
ance of them, Psal. lxxxix. 7. As the creation was erected by
him for his glory, so all the acts of his government are design-
ed for the same end; and his creatures deny him his due, if
they acknowledge not his excellency in whatsoever dreadful,
as well as pleasing garbs it appears in the world. His terror
as well as his righteousness appears, when he is a God of sal-
vation. " By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer
us, 0 God of our salvation," Psal. Ixv. 5.

But the expression I pitch upon in the text to handle, is
" glorious in holiness." He is magnified or honourable in holi-
ness; so the word is translated, Isa. xlii. 21. "He will mag-
nify the law and make it honourable." Thy holiness has shone
forth admirably in this last exploit against the enemies and op-
pressors of thy people. The holiness of God is his glory, as
his grace is his riches: holiness is his crown, and his mercy is
his treasure. This is the blessedness and nobleness of his na-
ture; it renders him glorious in himself, and glorious to his
creatures, that understand any thing of this lovely perfection.

Doctrine. Holiness is a glorious perfection belonging to the
nature of God. Hence he is in Scripture styled often the Holy
One, the Holy One of Jacob, the Holy One of Israel; and oftener
entitled holy than almighty, and set forth by this part of his
dignity more than by any other. This is more affixed as
an epithet to his name than any other: you never find it ex-
pressed, his mighty name, or his wise name; but his great
name, and most of all, his holy name. This is his greatest title
of honour, in this does the majesty and venerableness of his

130 0N THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

name appear. When the sinfulness of Sennacherib is aggra-
vated, the Holy Ghost takes the rise from this attribute: thou
hast "lifted up thine eyes on high, even against the Holy One
of Israel," 2 Kings xix. 22; not against the wise, mighty, &c.
but against the Holy One of Israel, as that wherein the ma-
jesty of God was most illustrious. It is upon this account he
is called light, as impurity is called darkness; both in this sense
are opposed to one another: he is a pure and unmixed light,
free from all blemish in his essence, nature, and operations.

Heathens have owned it. Proclus calls him the undefiled
Governor of the world.1 The poetical transformations of their
false gods, and the extravagances committed by them were (in
the account of the wisest of them) an unholy thing to report
and hear.2 And some vindicate Epicurus from the atheism
wherewith he was commonly charged; that he did not deny
the being of God, but those adulterous and contentious deities
the people worshipped, which were practices unworthy and
unbecoming the nature of God. Hence they asserted that
virtue was an imitation of God, and a virtuous man bore a re-
semblance to God: if virtue were a copy from God, a greater
holiness must be owned in the original.3 And when some of
them were at a loss how to free God from being the author of
sin in the world, they ascribe the birth of sin to matter, and
run into an absurd opinion, fancying it to be uncreated, that
thereby they might exempt God from all mixture of evil, so
sacred with them was the conception of God as a holy God.

Again, the absurdest heretics have owned it. The Manichees
and Marcionites, that thought evil came by necessity, yet would
save God's being the author of it, by asserting two distinct
eternal principles, one the original of evil, as God was the
fountain of good.4 So rooted was the notion of this Divine
purity that none would ever slander goodness itself with that
which was so disparaging to it.

Nor can the nature of God rationally be conceived without
it. Though the power of God be the first rational conclusion,
drawn from the sight of his works; wisdom the next, from the
order and connexion of his works; purity must result from the
beauty of his works. That God cannot be deformed by evil,
who has made every thing so beautiful in its time. The notion
of a God cannot be entertained without separating from him
whatsoever is impure and bespotting both in his essence and
actions. Though we conceive him infinite in majesty, infinite
in essence, eternal in duration, mighty in power, and wise and

1 "A^pstvTic hytjujjv.

2 'OyJ'cucKav 03-/GV. Ammon. in Plut. 'E/ apud Delphos, p. 393.

3 Gassend. torn, 1. Phys. § i. lib. 4. cap. 2. p. 289.

4 Pftav. Theol. Dogmat. torn. 1. lib. 6. cap. 5. p. 415.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

131

immutable in his counsels, merciful in his proceedings with
men, and whatsoever other perfections may dignify so sove-
reign a Being; yet if we conceive him destitute of this excel-
lent perfection, and imagine him possessed with the least
contagion of evil, we make him but an infinite monster, and
sully all those perfections we ascribed to him before; we rather
own him a devil than a God. It is a contradiction to be God
and to be darkness, or to have one mote of darkness mixed
with his light. It is a less injury to him to deny his being, than
to deny the purity of it; the one makes him no God, the other
a deformed, unlovely, and a detestable God.

Plutarch said not amiss, that he should count himself less
injured by that man that should deny that there was such a
man as Plutarch, than by him that should affirm that there was
such a one indeed, but he was a debauched fellow, a loose and
vicious person. It is a less wrong to God to discard any ac-
knowledgments of his being, and to count him nothing; than
to believe him to exist, but imagine a base and unholy Deity:
he that says, God is not holy, speaks much worse than he that
says, There is no God at all.

Let these points be considered:

If any, this attribute has an excellency above his other
perfections. There are some attributes of God we prefer,
because of our interest in them, and the relation they bear to
us: as we esteem his goodness before his power; and his
mercy whereby he relieves us, before his justice whereby he
punishes us. As there are some we more delight in, because
of the goodness we receive by them; so there are some that
God delights to honour, because of their excellency.

None is sounded out so loftily with such solemnity, and so
frequently by angels that stand before his throne, as this.
Where do you find any other attribute trebled in the praises of
it, as this? " Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole
earth is full of his glory," Isa. vi. 3; and, "The four beasts
rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God
Almighty," Rev. iv. 8. His power or sovereignty, as Lord of
hosts, is but once mentioned; but with a threefold repetition of
his holiness. Do you hear in any angelical song any other
perfection of the Divine nature thrice repeated ? Where do
we read of the crying out, Eternal, eternal, eternal; or, Faith-
ful, faithful, faithful, Lord God of hosts? Whatsoever other
attribute is left out, this God would have to fill the mouths of
angels and blessed spirits for ever in heaven.

Again, he singles it out to swear by. " Once have I sworn
by my holiness, that I will not lie unto David," Psal. lxxxix.
35; and, "The Lord God hath sworn by his holiness," Amos
iv. 2. He twice swears by his holiness; once by his power,

132 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

Isa. lxii. 8; once by all, when he swears by his name, Jer.
xliv. 26. He lays here his holiness to pledge for the assurance
of his promise, as the attribute most dear to him, most valued
by him, as though no other could give an assurance parallel to
it in this concern of an everlasting redemption which is there
spoken of. He that swears, swears by a greater than himself;
God having no greater than himself, swears by himself: and
swearing here by his holiness, seems to equal that single one
to all his other attributes; as if he were more concerned in the
honour of it, than of all the rest. It is as if he should have
said, Since I have not a more excellent perfection to swear by,
than that of my holiness, I lay this to pawn for your security,
and bind myself by that which I will never part with, were it
possible for me to be stripped of all the rest. It is a tacit im-
precation of himself, If I lie unto David, let me never be count-
ed holy, or thought righteous enough to be trusted by angels
or men. This attribute he makes most of.

Again, it is his glory and beauty. Holiness is the honour of
the creature, sanctification and honour are linked together,
1 Thess. iv. 4, much more is it the honour of God; it is the
image of God in the creature, Eph. iv. 24. When we take a
picture of a man, we draw the most beautiful part, the face,
which is a member of the greatest excellency. When God
would be drawn to the life, as much as can be, in the spirit of
his creatures, he is drawn in this attribute, as being the most
beautiful perfection of God, and most valuable with him.
Power is his hand and arm; omniscience, his eye; mercy, his
bowels; eternity, his duration; his holiness is his beauty: —
"should praise the beauty of holiness," 2 Chron. xx. 21. In
the 27th psalm and the 4th verse, David desires to behold the
beauty of the Lord, and inquire in his holy temple; that is, the
holiness of God manifested in his hatred of sin in the daily
sacrifices. Holiness was the beauty of the temple, Isa. Ixiv. 1 1.
Holy and beautiful house are joined together; much more the
beauty of God that dwelt in the sanctuary.

This renders him lovely to all his innocent creatures, though
formidable to the guilty ones. A heathen philosopher could
call it, the beauty of the Divine essence, and say, That God
was not so happy by an eternity of life, as by an excellency of
virtue.1 And the angels' song intimates it to be his glory, Isa.
vi. 3. "The whole earth is full of his glory;" that is, of his
holiness in his laws, and in his judgments against sin; that
being the attribute applauded by them before.

It is his very life. So it is called, Eph. iv. IS. "Alienated
from the life of God," that is, from the holiness of God; speak-
ing of the opposite to it, the uncleanness and profaneness of the

• Plutarch. Eugubin. dc Perenni Phil. lib. 6. cap. 6.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD

133

gentiles. We are alienated from that which we are bound to
imitate ; but this is the perfection, always set out as the pattern
of our actions, "Be ye holy, as I am holy;" no other is pro-
posed as our copy. Alienated from that purity of God, which
is as much as his life, without which he could not live. If
he were stript of this, he would be a dead God, more than by
the want of any other perfection. His swearing by it intimates
as much: he swears often by his own life, "As I live, saith the
Lord;" so he swears by his holiness, as if it were his life, and
more his life than any other. Let me not live, or let me not be
holy, are all one in his oath. His Deity could not outlive the
life of his purity.

Jls it seems to challenge an excellency above all his other
perfections, so it is the glory of all the rest. As it is the glory
of the Godhead, so it is the glory of every perfection in the
Godhead. As his power is the strength of them, so his holiness
is the beauty of them. As all would be weak without alrnighti-
ness to back them, so all would be uncomely without holiness
to adorn them. Should this be sullied, all the rest would lose
their honour and their comfortable efficacy; as at the same in-
stant that the sun should lose its light, it would lose its heat, its
strength, its generative and quickening virtue. As sincerity is
the lustre of every grace in a Christian, so is purity the splen-
dour of every attribute in the Godhead. His justice is a holy
justice; his wisdom, a holy wisdom; his arm of power, a holy
arm, Psal. xcviii. 1; his truth or promise, a holy promise, Psal.
cv. 42. Holy and true go hand in hand, Rev. vi. 10. His
name, which signifies all his attributes in conjunction, is holy,
Psal. ciii. 1. Yea, he is "righteous in all his ways, and holy in
all his works," Psal. cxlv. 17. It is the rule of all his acts, the
source of all his punishments. If every attribute of the Deity
were a distinct member, purity would be the form, the soul, the
spirit to animate them. Without it, his patience would be an
indulgence to sin, his mercy a fondness, his wrath a madness,
his power a tyranny, his wisdom an unworthy subtlety. It is
this gives a decorum to all. His mercy is not exercised with-
out it, since he pardons none but those that have an interest, by
union in the obedience, of a Mediator, which was so delightful
to his infinite purity. His justice, which guilty man is apt to
tax with cruelty and violence in the exercise of it, is not acted
out of the compass of this rule. In acts of man's vindictive jus-
tice there is something of impurity, perturbation, passion, some
mixture of cruelty; but none of these fall upon God in the se-
verest acts of wrath. When God appears to Ezekiel in the
resemblance of fire, to signify his anger against the house of
Judah for their idolatry, from his loins downward there was the
appearance of fire; but from the loins upward, the appearance
Vol. II.— IS

134 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

of brightness, as the colour of amber, Ezek. viii. 2. His heart
is clear in his most terrible acts of vengeance; it is a pure flame
wherewith he scorches and burns his enemies: he is holy in the
most fiery appearance.

This attribute therefore is never so much applauded, as when
his sword has been drawn, and he has manifested the greatest
fierceness against his enemies. The magnificent and triumph-
ant expression of it in the text, follows just upon God's miracu-
lous defeat and ruin of the Egyptian army; " The sea covered
them; they sank as lead in the mighty waters:" then it follows,
" Who is like unto thee, 0 Lord, — glorious in holiness?" And
when it was so celebrated by the seraphim, Isa. vi. 3, it was when
the posts moved, and the house was filled with smoke, ver. 4,
which are signs of anger, Psal. xviii. 7, 8; and when he was
about to send Isaiah upon a message of spiritual and temporal
judgments, that he would make the heart of that people fat,
and their ears heavy, and their eyes shut; waste their cities
without inhabitant, and their houses without man, and make the
land desolate, Isa. vi. 9 — 12. And the angels which here ap-
plaud him for his holiness, are the executioners of his justice;
and here called seraphim, from burning, or fiery spirits, as be-
ing the ministers of his wrath. His justice is part of his holi-
ness, whereby he does reduce into order those things that are
out of order. When he is consuming men by his fury, he does
not diminish, but manifest purity ; "The just Lord is in the midst
of her, he will do no iniquity," Zeph. iii. 5. Every action of
his is free from all tincture of evil. It is also celebrated with
praise by the four beasts about his throne, when he appears in a
covenant garb, with a rainbow about his throne, and yet with
thunderings and lightnings shot out against his enemies, Rev.
iv. 8, compared with ver. 3. 5, to show that all his acts of mercy,
as well as justice, are clear from any stain.

This is the crown of all his attributes, the life of all his de-
crees, the brightness of all his actions; nothing is decreed by
him, nothing is acted by him, but what is worthy of the dig-
nity, and becoming the honour of this attribute.

For the better understanding this attribute, observe,

The nature of this holiness. — The demonstration of it. — The
purity of his nature in all his acts about sin. — The use of all
to ourselves.

1. The nature of Divine holiness.

In general.

The holiness of God negatively, is a perfect and unpolluted
freedom from all evil. As we call gold pure that is not debased
by any dross, and that garment clean that is free from any
spot; so the nature of God is estranged from all shadow of
evil, all imaginable contagion.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. J35

Positively, it is the rectitude or integrity of the Divine na-
ture, or that conformity of it in affection and action to the
Divine will, as to his eternal law, whereby he works with a
becomingness to his own excellency, and whereby he has a
delight and complacency in every thing agreeable to his will,
and an abhorrence of every thing contrary thereunto.

As there is no darkness in his understanding, so there is no
spot in his will. As his mind is possessed with all truth, so
there is no deviation in his will from it. He loves all truth
and goodness; he hates all falsity and evil. In regard of his
righteousness, he loves righteousness; "The righteous Lord
loveth righteousness," Psal. xi. 7; and hath no pleasure in
wickedness, Psal. v. 4. He values purity in his creatures, and
detests all impurity, whether inward or outward. We may,
indeed, distinguish the holiness of God from his righteousness
in our conceptions: 1 holiness is a perfection absolutely consid-
ered in the nature of God's righteousness, a perfection as re-
ferred to others in his actions towards them and upon them.

In particular.

This property of the Divine nature is,

(1.) An essential and necessary perfection: he is essentially
and necessarily holy. It is the essential glory of his nature :
his holiness is as necessary as his being, as necessary as his
omniscience; as he cannot but know what is right, so he can-
not but do what is just. His understanding is not as created
understandings, capable of ignorance as well as knowledge; so
his will is not as created wills, capable of unrighteousness as
well as righteousness. There can be no contradiction or con-
trariety in the Divine nature, to know what is right, and to do
what is wrong: if so, there would be a diminution of his bless-
edness, he would not be a God always blessed, blessed for ever,
as he is, Rom. ix. 5. He is as necessarily holy as he is neces-
sarily God; as necessarily without sin as without change. As
he was God from eternity, so he was holy from eternity. He
was gracious, merciful, just in his own nature, and also holy;2
though no creature had been framed by him to exercise his
grace, mercy, justice, or holiness upon. If God had not created
a world, he had in his own nature been almighty, and able to
create a world. If there never had been anything but himself,
yet he had been omniscient, knowing every thing that was
within the verge and compass of his infinite power; so he was
pure in his own nature, though he never had brought forth any
rational creature whereby to manifest this purity. These per-
fections are so necessary, that the nature of God could not sub-
sist without them. And the acts of those ad intra, or within
himself, are necessary ; for being omniscient in nature, there

' Martin, de Deo, p. 86. 2 Turrelin. de Satisfact. p. 28.

136 0N TIIE HOLINESS OF GOD.

must be an act of knowledge of himself and his own nature.
Being infinitely holy, an act of holiness in infinitely loving
himself, must necessarily flow from this perfection. ' As the
Divine will cannot but be perfect, so it cannot be wanting to
render the highest love to itself, to its goodness, to the Divine
nature, which is due to him. Indeed, the acts of those ad ecr-
tra are not necessary, but upon a condition. To love righte-
ousness without himself, or to detest sin, or inflict punishment
for the committing of it, could not have been, had there been
no righteous creature for him to love, no sinning creature for
him to loathe, and to exercise his justice upon as the object of
punishment.

Some attributes require a condition to make the acts of them
necessary. As it is at God's liberty, whether he will create a
rational creature, or not; but when he decrees to make either
angel or man, it is necessary from the perfection of his nature
to make them righteous. It is at God's liberty whether he
will speak to man, or no; but if he does, it is impossible for
him to speak that which is false, because of his infinite perfec-
tion of veracity. It is at his liberty whether he will permit a
creature to sin; but if he sees good to suffer it, it is impossible
but that he should detest that creature that goes cross to his
righteous nature. His holiness is not solely an act of his will,
for then he might be unholy as well as holy ; he might love
iniquity and hate righteousness; he might then command that
which is good, and afterwards command that which is bad and
unworthy; for what is only an act of his will, and not belong-
ing to his nature, is indifferent to him. As the positive law he
gave to Adam, of not eating the forbidden fruit, was a pure act
of his will; he might have given him liberty to eat of it, if he
had pleased, as well as prohibited him. But what is moral and
good in its own nature is necessarily willed by God, and can-
not be changed by him, because of the transcendent eminency
of his nature and righteousness of his will. As it is impossible
for God to command his creature to hate him, or to dispense
with a creature for not loving him; for this would be to com-
mand a thing intrinsically evil, the highest ingratitude, the
very spirit of all wickedness, which consists in the hating God.
Yet though God be thus necessarily holy, he is not so by a
bare and simple necessity, as the sun shines, or the fire burns;
but by a free necessity, not compelled thereunto, but inclined
from the fulness of the perfection of his own nature and will;
so as by no means he can be unholy, because he will not be
unholy; it is against his nature to be so.

(2.) God only is absolutely holy. "There is none holy as
the Lord," 1 Sam. ii. 2. It is the peculiar glory of his nature.

1 Ochino, Predic. part. 3. Bodic. 51. page 347, 348.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. I37

As there is none good but God, so none holy but God. No
creature can be essentially holy, because mutable: holiness is
the substance of God, but a quality and accident in a creature.
God is infinitely holy, creatures finitely holy. He is holy from
himself, creatures are holy by derivation from him. He is not
only holy, but holiness; holiness, in the highest degree, is his
sole prerogative. As the highest heaven is called the heaven
of heavens, because it embraces in its circle all the heavens,
and contains the magnitude of them, and has a greater vastness
above all that it encloses; so is God the " Holy of holies," he
contains the holiness of all creatures put together, and infinitely
more. As all the wisdom, excellency, and power of the crea-
tures, if compared with the wisdom, excellency, and power of
God, is but folly, vileness, and weakness ; so the highest created
purity, if set in parallel with God, is but impurity andunclean-
ness: " Thou only art holy," Rev. xv. 4. It is like the light of
a glow-worm to that of the sun. " The heavens are not clean
in his sight," Job. xv. 15; "and his angels he charged with
folly," Job. iv. IS. Though God has crowned the angels with
an unspotted sanctity, and placed them in a habitation of glory;
yet, as illustrious as they are, they have an unworthiness in
their own nature to appear before the throne of so holy a God;
their holiness grows dim and pale in his presence. It is but a
weak shadow of that Divine purity, whose light is so glorious,
that it makes them cover their faces out of weakness to behold
it, and cover their feet out of shame in themselves. They are
not pure in his sight, because though they love God (which is
a principle of holiness) as much as they can, yet not so much as
he deserves; they love him with the intensest degree according
to their power, but not with the intensest degree according to
his own amiableness: for they cannot infinitely love God,
unless they were as infinite as God, and had an understanding
of his perfections equal with himself, and as immense as his
own knowledge. God having an infinite knowledge of him-
self, can alone have an infinite love to himself, and conse-
quently an infinite holiness without any defect; because he
loves himself according to the vastness of his own amiableness,
which no finite being can. Therefore, though the angels be
exempt from corruption and soil, they cannot enter into com-
parison with the purity of God, without acknowledgment of a
dimness in themselves. Besides, he charges them with folly,
and puts no trust in them; because they have the power of
sinning, though not the act of sinning. They have a possible
folly in their own nature to be charged with. Holiness is a
quality separable from them, but it is inseparable from God.
Had they not at first a mutability in their nature, none of them
could have sinned, there had been no devils; but because some

J38 0N THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

of them sinned, the rest might have sinned. And though the
standing angels shall never be changed, yet they are still
changeable in their own nature, and their standing is due to
grace, not to nature; and though they shall be for ever pre-
served, yet they are not, nor ever can be, immutable by
nature, for then they should stand upon the same bottom with
God himself; but they are supported by grace against that
changeableness of nature which is essential to a creature. The
Creator only has immortality, that is, immutability, 1 Tim.
vi. 16.

It is as certain a truth, that no creature can be naturally im-
mutable and impeccable, as that God cannot create any thing
actually polluted and imperfect. It is as possible that the high-
est creature may sin, as it is possible that it may be annihilated:
it may become not holy, as it may become not a creature, but
nothing. The holiness of a creature may be reduced into no-
thing, as well as his substance; but the holiness of the Creator
cannot be diminished, dimmed, or overshadowed; he is the
" Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither sha-
dow of turning," James i. 17. It is as impossible his holiness
should be blotted, as that his Deity should be extinguished; for
whatsoever creature has essentially such or such qualities, can-
not be stripped of them, without being turned out of its essence.
As a man is essentially rational; and if he ceases to be rational,
he ceases to be man. The sun is essentially luminous; if it
should become dark in its own body, it would cease to be the
sun. In regard of this absolute and only holiness of God, it
is thrice repeated by the seraphim, Isa. vi. 3. The threefold
repetition of a word, notes the certainty or absoluteness of the
thing, or the irreversibleness of the resolve; as Ezek. xxi. 27:
" I will overturn, overturn, overturn," notes the certainty of
the judgment; also Rev. viii. 13: "Woe, woe, woe," three
times repeated, signifies the same. The holiness of God is so
absolutely peculiar to him, that it can no more be expressed in
creatures, than his omnipotence, whereby they may be able
to create a world; or his omniscience, whereby they may be
capable of knowing all things, and knowing God as he knows
himself.

(3.) God is so holy, that he cannot possibly approve of any evil
done by another, but does perfectly abhor it; it would not else
be a glorious holiness: " He hath no pleasure in wickedness,"
Psal. v. 4. He does not only love that which is just, but abhor,
with a perfect hatred, all things contrary to the rule of righteous-
ness. Holiness can no more approve of sin than it can commit
it. To be delighted with the evil in another's act, contracts a
guilt, as well as the commission of it; for approbation of a thing
is a consent to it. Sometimes the approbation of an evil in

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. I39

another, is a more grievous crime than the act itself, as appears
in Rom. i. 32: "Who, knowing the judgment of God, not only-
do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them:" where
the " not only," manifests it to be a greater guilt to take plea-
sure in them. Every sfn«is aggravated by the delight in it; to
take pleasure in the evil of another's action, shows a more ar-
dent affection and love to sin, than the committer himself may
have. This, therefore, can as little fall upon God, as to do an
evil act himself: yet as a man may be delighted with the con-
sequences of another's sin, as it may occasion some public good,
or private good to the guilty person; as sometimes it may be
an occasion of his repentance, when the horridness of a fact
stares him in the face, and occasions a self-reflection for that
and other crimes, which is attended with an indignation against
them, and sincere remorse for them; so God is pleased with
those good things his goodness and wisdom bring forth upon
the occasion of sin. But in regard of his holiness, he cannot
approve of the evil, whence his infinite wisdom drew forth his
own glory and his creatures' good: his pleasure is not in the
sinful act of the creature, but in the act of his own goodness
and skill, turning it to another end than what the creature aimed
at.

[1.] He abhors it necessarily. Holiness is the glory of the
Deity, therefore necessary. The nature of God is so holy, that
he cannot but hate it. " Thou art of purer eyes than to behold
evil, and canst not look on iniquity," Hab. i. 13. He is more
opposite to it than light to darkness, and therefore it can expect
no countenance from him. A love of holiness cannot be with-
out a hatred of every thing that is contrary to it. As God ne-
cessarily loves himself, so he must necessarily hate every thing
that is against himself: and as he loves himself for his own
excellency and holiness, he must necessarily detest whatsoever
is repugnant to his holiness, because of the evil of it. Since he
is infinitely good, he cannot but love goodness, as it is a resem-
blance to himself; and cannot but abhor unrighteousness, as
being most distant from him, and contrary to him. If he have
any esteem for his own perfections, he must needs have an im-
placable aversion to all that is so repugnant to him, that would,
if it were possible, destroy him, and is a point directed not only
against his glory, but against his life. If he did not hate it, he
would hate himself; for since righteousness is his image, and
sin would deface his image, if he did not love his image, and
loathe what is against his image, he would loathe himself, he
would be an enemy to his own nature. Nay, if it were possi-
ble for him to love it, it were possible for him not to be holy,
it were possible, then, for him to deny himself, and will that,

140 0N THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

he were no God, which is a palpable contradiction.1 Yet this
necessity in God of hating sin, is not a brutish necessity, such
as is in mere animals, that avoid by a natural instinct, not of
choice, what is prejudicial to them; but most free, as well as
necessary, arising from an infinite knowledge of his own nature,
and of the evil nature of sin, and the contrariety of it to his
own excellency, and the order of his works.

[2.] Therefore intensely. Nothing do men act for more than
their glory. As he does infinitely, and therefore perfectly know
himself, so he infinitely, and therefore perfectly knows what is
contrary to himself, and, as according to the manner and mea-
sure of his knowledge of himself, is his love to himself; as in-
finite as his knowledge, and therefore inexpressible and incon-
ceivable by us: so from the perfection of his knowledge of the
evil of sin, which is infinitely above what any creature can
have, does arise a displeasure against it suitable to that know-
ledge. In creatures the degrees of affection to or aversion from
a thing, are suited to the strength of their apprehensions of the
good or evil in them. God knows not only the workers of
wickedness, but the wickedness of their works. " For he
knoweth vain men: he seeth wickedness also," Job xi. 11. The
vehemency of this hatred is expressed variously in Scripture;
he loathes it so that he is impatient of beholding it; the very
sight of it affects him with detestation, Hab. i. 13; he hates the
first spark of it in the imagination, Zech. viii. 17. With what
variety of expressions does he repeat his indignation at their
polluted services, Amos v. 21 — 23. I hate, I detest, [ despise,
I will not smell, I will not accept, I will not regard; take away
from me the noise of thy songs, I will not hear. So Isa. i. 14,
"My soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to
bear them." It is the abominable thing that he hates, Jer. xliv.
4; he is vexed and fretted at it, Isa. lxiii. 10; Ezek. xvi. 43.
He abhors it so that his hatred rebounds upon the person that
commits it; he hates all workers of iniquity, Psal. v. 5. Sin
is the only primary object of his displeasure: he is not dis-
pleased with the nature of man as man, for that was derived
from him; but with the nature of man as sinful, which is from
the sinner himself. When a man has but one object for the
exercise of all his anger, it is stronger than when diverted to
many objects: a mighty torrent, when diverted into many
streams, is weaker than when it comes in a full body upon one
place only. The infinite anger and hatred of God, which is as
infinite as his love and mercy, has no other object, against
which he directs the mighty force of it, but only unrighteous-
ness. He hates no person for all the penal evils upon him,
though they were more by ten thousand times than Job was

' Turrctin. de Satisfact. p. 35, 36.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. |4[

struck with, but only for his sin. Again, sin being only evil,
and an unmixed evil, there is nothing in it that can abate the
detestation of God, or balance his hatred of it; there is not the
least grain of goodness in it, to incline him to the least affec-
tion to any part of it. This hatred cannot but be intense; for
as the more any creature is sanctified, the more is he advanced
in the abhorrence of that which is contrary to holiness; there-
fore God being the highest, most absolute, and infinite holiness,
does infinitely, and therefore intensely, hate unholiness; being
infinitely righteous, does infinitely abhor unrighteousness; be-
ing infinitely true, does infinitely abhor falsity, as it is the
greatest and most deformed evil. As it is from the righteous-
ness of his nature, that he has a content and satisfaction in
righteousness; "The righteous Lord loveth righteousness," Psal.
xi. 7; so it is from the same righteousness of his nature, that he
detests whatsoever is morally evil: as his nature therefore is
infinite, so must his abhorrence be.

[3.] Therefore universally, because necessarily and intensely.
He does not hate it in one, and indulge it in another, but loathes
it wherever he finds it; not one worker of iniquity is exempt
from it: "Thou hatest all workers of iniquity," Psal. v. 5. For
it is not sin as in this or that person, or as great or little; but
sin as sin is the object of his hatred: and therefore let the per-
son be ever so great, and have particular characters of his
image upon him, it secures him not from God's hatred of any
evil action he shall commit. He is a jealous God, jealous of
his glory, Exod. xx. 5; a metaphor taken from jealous hus-
bands, who will not endure the least adultery in their wives,
nor God the least defection of man from his law. Every act
of sin is a spiritual adultery, denying God to be the chief good,
and giving that prerogative by that act to some vile thing. He
loves it no more in his own people than he does in his enemies;
he frees them not from his rod, the testimony of his loathing
their crimes: whosoever sows iniquity, shall reap affliction. It
might be thought that he affected their dross, if he did not re-
fine them, and loved their filth, if he did not cleanse them:
because of his detestation of their sin, he will not spare them
from the furnace, though because of love to their persons in
Christ, he will exempt them from Tophet. How did the sword
ever and anon drop down upon David's family after his un-
worthy dealing in Uriah's case, and cut off ever and anon some
of the branches of it! He does sometimes punish it more se-
verely in this life in his own people, than in- others. Upon
Jonah's disobedience a storm pursues him, and a whale devours
him, while the profane world lived in their lusts without con-
trol. ' Moses, for one. act of unbelief, is excluded from Canaan,
when greater sinners attained that happiness. It is not a light
Vol. II.— 19

£42 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

punishment, but a vengeance lie takes on their inventions, Psal.
xcix. 8; to manifest that he hates sin as sin, and not because
the worst persons commit it. Perhaps had a profane man
touched the ark, the hand of God had not so suddenly reached
him; but when Uzzah, a man zealous for him, as may be sup-
posed by his care for the support of the tottering ark, would
step out of his place, he strikes him down for his disobedient
action, by the side of the ark, which he would indirectly (as
not being a Levite) sustain, 2 Sam. vi. 7. Nor did our Saviour
so sharply reprove the Pharisees, and turn so short from them,
as he did from Peter, when he gave a carnal advice, and con-
trary to that wherein was to be the greatest manifestation of
God's holiness, namely, the death of Christ, Matt. xvi. 23. He
calls him Satan, a name sharper than the title of, the devil's
children, wherewith he marked the Pharisees, and given (be-
sides him) to none but Judas, who made a profession of love
to him, and was outwardly ranked in the number of his disci-
ples. A gardener hates a weed the more for being in the bed
with the most precious flowers. God's hatred is universally
fixed against sin, and he hates it as much in those whose per-
sons shall not fall under his eternal anger, as being secured in
the arms of a Redeemer, by whom the guilt is wiped off, and
the filth shall be totally washed away. Though he hates their
sin, and cannot but hate it, yet he loves their persons, as being
united as members to the Mediator and mystical Head. A man
may love a gangrened member, because it is a member of his
own body, or a member of a dear relation, but he loathes the
gangrene in it more than in those wherein he is not so much
concerned.

Though God's hatred of believers' persons is removed by
faith in the satisfactory death of Jesus Christ; yet his antipathy
against sin was not taken away by that blood; nay, it was im-
possible it should. It was never designed, nor had it any
capacity, to alter the unchangeable nature of God, but to mani-
fest the unspotted nature of his will, and his eternal aversion to
any thing that was contrary to the purity of his being, and the
righteousness of his laws.

[4.] Perpetually. This must necessarily follow upon the
others. He can no more cease to hate impurity, than he can
cease to love holiness. If he should in the least instant approve
of any thing that is filthy, in that moment he would disapprove
of his own nature and being; there would be an interruption
in his love of himself, which is as eternal as it is infinite. How
can he love any sin, which is contrary to his nature, but for
one moment, without hating his own nature, which is essen-
tially contrary to sin ? Two contraries cannot be loved at the
same time ? God must first begin to hate himself, before he

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. J43

can approve of any evil which is directly opposite to himself.
We indeed are changed with a temptation, sometimes bear an
affection to it, and sometimes testify an indignation against it;
but God is always the same without any shadow of change,
and is angry with the wicked every day, Psal. vii. 11; that is,
uninterruptedly in the nature of his anger, though not in the
effects of it. God indeed may be reconciled to the sinner, but
never to the sin; for then he should renounce himself, deny his
own essence and his own Divinity, if his inclinations to the love
of goodness, and his aversion from evil, could be changed; if
he suffered the contempt of the one, and encouraged the prac-
tice of the other.

(4.) God is so holy, that he cannot but love holiness in others.
Not that he owes any thing to his creature, but from the un-
speakable holiness of his nature, whence affections to all things
that bear a resemblance of him do flow; as light shoots out
from the sun, or any glittering body. It is essential to the infi-
nite righteousness of his nature, to love righteousness wherever
he beholds it: "The righteous Lord loveth righteousness,"
Psal. xi. 7. He cannot, because of his nature, but love that
which bears some agreement with his nature, that which is the
curious draught of his own wisdom and purity. He cannot
but be delighted with a copy of himself: he would not have a
holy nature, if he did not love holiness in every nature : his
own nature would be denied by him, if he did not affect every
thing that had a stamp of his own nature upon it. There was
indeed nothing without God, that could invite him to manifest
such goodness to man, as he did in creation: but after he had
stamped that rational nature with a righteousness convenient
for it, it was impossible but that he should ardently love that
impression of himself; because he loves his own Deity, and
consequently all things which are any sparks and images of it.
And were the devils capable of an act of righteousness, the
holiness of his nature would incline him to love it, even in those
dark and revolted spirits.

(5.) God is so holy, that he cannot positively will or encour-
age sin in any. How can he give any encouragement to that,
which he cannot in the least approve of, or look upon without
loathing, not only the crime but the criminal? Light may sooner
be the cause of darkness, than holiness itself be the cause of
unholiness, absolutely contrary to it. It is a contradiction, that
he that is the fountain of good should be the source of evil; as
if the same fountain should bubble up both sweet and bitter
streams, salt and fresh, James iii. 11. Since whatsoever good is
in man acknowledges God for its author, it follows that men are
evil by their own fault. There is no need for men to be incited
to that, to which the corruption of their own nature does so

144 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

powerfully bend them. Water has a forcible principle in its
own nature to carry it downward; it needs no force to hasten
the motion : God tempts no man, but every man is drawn away
by his own lust, James i. 13, 14. All the preparations for glory
are from God, Rom. ix. 23. But men are said to be fitted to
destruction, ver. 22; but God is not said to fit them; they by
their iniquities fit themselves for ruin, and he by his long-suffer-
ing keeps the destruction from them for a while.

[1.] First, God cannot command any unrighteousness. As
all virtue is summed up in a love to God, so all iniquity is sum-
med up in an enmity to God: every wicked work declares a
man an enemy to God; "Enemies in your mind by wicked
works," Col. i. 21. If he could command his creature any
thing which bears an enmity in its nature to himself, he would
then implicitly command the hatred of himself, and he would
be in some measure a hater of himself. He that commands
another to deprive him of his life, cannot be said to bear any
love to his own life. God can never hate himself, and therefore
cannot command any thing that is hateful to him, and tends to
a hating of him, and driving the creature further from him. In
that very moment that God should command such a thing, he
would cease to be good. What can be more absurd to imagine,
than that infinite goodness should enjoin a thing contrary to
itself, and contrary to the essential duty of a creature, and order
him to do any thing that bespeaks an enmity to the nature of
the Creator, or a deflouring and disparaging his works? God
cannot but love himself, and his own goodness; he were not
otherwise good: and therefore cannot order the creature to do
any thing opposite to his goodness, or any thing hurtful to the
creature itself, as unrighteousness is.

[2.] Nor can God secretly inspire any evil into us. It is as
much against his nature to incline the heart to sin, as it is to
command it. As it is impossible but that he should love him-
self, and therefore impossible to enjoin any thing that tends to
a hatred of himself; by the same reason it is as impossible that
he should infuse such a principle in the heart, that might carry a
man out to any act of enmity against him. To enjoin one thing
and incline to another, would be an argument of such insincer-
ity, unfaithfulness, contradiciion to itself, that it cannot be con-
ceived to fall within the compass of the Divine nature, who is
" a God without iniquity," because a God of truth and sincerity,
"just and right is he," Dent, xxxii. 4. To bestow excellent
faculties upon man in creation, and incline him by a sudden im-
pulsion to things contrary to the true end of him, and induce an
inevitable ruin upon that work, which he had composed with
so much wisdom and goodness, and pronounced good with so
much delight and pleasure, is inconsistent with that love which

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

145

God bears to the creature of his own framing. To incline his
will to that which would render him the object of his hatred,
the fuel for his justice, and sink him into deplorable misery, it
is most absurd and unchristian-like to imagine.

[3.] Nor can God necessitate man to sin. Indeed sin cannot
be committed by force; there is no sin but is in some sort volun-
tary; voluntary in the root, or voluntary in the branch; volun-
tary by an immediate act of the will, or voluntary by a general
or natural inclination of the will. That is not a crime to which
a man is forced, without any concurrence of the faculties of the
soul to that act; it is indeed not an act, but a passion; a man
that is forced, is not an agent, but a patient under the force.
But what necessity can there be upon man from God, since he
has implanted such a principle in him, that he cannot desire
any thing but what is good, either really or apparently; and if
a man mistakes the object, it is his own fault; for God has en-
dowed him with reason to discern, and liberty of will to choose
upon that judgment.

And though it is to be acknowledged that God has an abso-
lute sovereign dominion over his creature, without any limita-
tion, and may do what he pleases, and dispose of it according
to his own will, as a potter does with his vessel, Rom. ix. 21;
according as the church speaks, Isa. lxiv. 8. " We are the
clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy
hand;" yet he cannot pollute any undefiled creature by virtue
of that sovereign power which he has to do what he will with
it; because such an act would be contrary to the foundation
and right of his dominion, which consists in the excellency of
his nature, his immense wisdom and unspotted purity. If God
should therefore do any such act, he would expunge the right
of his dominion, by blotting out that nature which renders him
fit for that dominion, and the exercise of it.1 Any dominion
which is exercised without the rules of goodness, is not a true
sovereignty, but an insupportable tyranny. God would cease
to be a rightful Sovereign, if he ceased to be good; and he
would cease to be good, if he did command, necessitate, or by
any positive operation incline inwardly the heart of a creature,
directly to that which was morally evil, and contrary to the
eminency of his own nature.

But that we may the better conceive of this, let us trace
man in his first fall, whereby he subjected himself, and all his
posterity, to the curse of the law and hatred of God; we shall
find no footsteps, either of precept, outward force, or inward
impulsion.2 The plain story of man's apostasy discharges
God from any interest in the crime as an encouragement, and

' Amyrald. disert. p. 103, 104.

2 Amyrald. Defens. de Calvin, p. 151, 152.

146 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

excuses him from any appearance of suspicion, when he show-
ed him the tree he had reserved as a mark of his sovereignty,
and forbade him to eat of the fruit of it. He backed the pro-
hibition with the threatening the greatest evil, namely, death;
which could be understood to imply nothing less than the loss
of all his happiness; and in that couched an assurance of the
perpetuity of his felicity, if he did not rebelliously reach forth
his hand to take and eat of the fruit, Gen. ii. 16, 17. It is I rue,
God had given that fruit an excellency, a goodness for food,
and a pleasantness to the eye, Gen. iii. 6. He had given man
an appetite, whereby he was capable of desiring so pleasant
a fruit; but God had by creation ranged it under the command
of reason, if man would have kept it in its due obedience; he
had fixed a severe threatening to bar the unlawful excursions
of it; he had allowed him a multitude of other fruits in the
garden, and given him liberty enough to satisfy his curiosity
in all except this only. Could there be any thing more oblig-
ing to man, to let God have his reserve of that one tree, than
the grant of all the rest; and more deterring from any disobe-
dient attempt, than so strict a command, spirited with so dread-
ful a penalty? God did not solicit him to rebel against him:
a solicitation to it, and a command against it, were inconsist-
ent. The devil assaults him, and God permitted it, and stands
as it were a spectator of the issue of the combat. There could
be no necessity upon man to listen to and entertain the sugges-
tions of the serpent; he had a power to resist him, and he had
an answer ready for all the devil's arguments, had they been
multiplied to more than they were ; the opposing the order of
God, had been a sufficient confutation of all the devil's plausi-
ble reasonings. That Creator who has given me my being,
has ordered me not to eat of it. Though the pleasure of the
fruit might allure him, yet the force of his reason might have
quelled the liquorishness of his sense : the perpetual thinking of
and sounding out the command of God, had silenced both Satan
and his own appetite; had disarmed the tempter, and preserved
his sensitive part in its due subjection. What inclination can
we suppose there could be from the Creator, when upon the
very first oiler of the temptation, Eve opposes to the tempter
the prohibition and threatening of God, and strains it to a
higher peg than we find God had delivered it in? For in Gen.
ii. 17, it is, " thou shalt not eat of it;" but she adds, Gen. iii. 3,
"neither shall ye touch it;" which was a remark that might have
had more influence to restrain her. Had our first parents kept
this fixed upon their understandings and thoughts, that God
had forbidden any such act as the eating of the fruit, and that
he was true lo execute the threatening he had uttered, of which
truth of God they could not but have a natural notion, with

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 147

what ease might they have withstood the devil's attack, and
defeated his design! And it had been easy with them, to have
kept their understandings by the force of such a thought, from
entertaining any contrary imagination. There is no ground
for any jealousy of any encouragements, inward impulsions,
or necessity from God in this affair. A discharge of God from
this first sin, will easily induce a freedom of him from all other
sins which follow upon it.

God does not then encourage, or excite, or incline to sin.
How can he excite to that, which, when it is done, he will be
sure to condemn? How can he be a righteous Judge, to sen-
tence a sinner to misery for a crime acted by a secret inspira-
tion from himself? Iniquity would deserve no reproof from
him, if he were any way positively the author of it. Were
God the author of it in us, what is the reason our own con-
sciences accuse us for it, and convince us of it? That, being
God's deputy, would not accuse us of it, if the sovereign power
by which it acts did incline us to it. How can he be thought
to excite to that which he has enacted such severe laws to
restrain, or incline man to that which he has so dreadfully
punished in his Son, and which it is impossible but the excel-
lency of his nature must incline him eternally to hate? We
may sooner imagine that a pure flame shall engender cold, and
darkness be the offspring of a sun-beam, as imagine such a
thing as this. "What shall we say then? Is there unright-
eousness with God? God forbid," Rom. ix. 14: the apostle
execrates such a thought.

(6.) God cannot act any evil, in or by himself. If he cannot
approve of sin in others, nor excite any to iniquity, which is
less, he cannot commit evil himself, which is greater: what he
cannot positively will in another, can never be willed in himself;
he cannot do evil through ignorance, because of his infinite
knowledge; nor through weakness, because of his infinite
power; nor through malice, because of his infinite rectitude.
He cannot will any unjust thing, because having an infinitely
perfect understanding, he cannot judge that to be true which is
false; or that to be good which is evil; his will is regulated by
his wisdom: if he could will any unjust and irrational thing,
his will would be repugnant to his understanding; there would
be a disagreement in God, will against mind, and will against
wisdom. He being the highest reason, the first truth, cannot
do any unreasonable, false, defective action. It is not a defect
in God that he cannot do evil, but a fulness and excellency of
power; as it is not a weakness in the light, but the perfection
of it, that it is unable to produce darkness: God is " the Father
of lights, with whom is no variableness," James i. 17. Nothing
pleases him, nothing is acted by him, but what is beseeming

J48 0N THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

the infinite excellence of his own nature. The voluntary neces-
sity whereby God cannot be unjust, renders him a God blessed
for ever: he would hate himself as the chief good, if in any of
his actions he should disagree with his goodness. He cannot
do any unworthy thing, not because he wants an infinite
power, but because he is possessed of an infinite wisdom, and
adorned with an infinite purity; and being infinitely pure,
cannot have the least mixture of impurity: as if yon can sup-
pose fire infinitely hot, you cannot suppose it to have the least
mixture of coldness. The better any thing is, the more unable
it is to do evil: God being the only goodness, can as little be
changed in his goodness as in his essence.

2. The next inquiry is, the proof that God is holy, or the
manifestation of it. Purity is as requisite to the blessedness
of God, as to the being of God: as he could not be God with-
out being blessed, so he could not be blessed without being
holy. He is called by the title of Blessed, as well as by that
of Holy ; " Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed ?" Mark
xiv. 61. Unrighteousness is a misery and turbulency in any
spirit wherein it is; for it is a privation of an excellency which
ought to be in every intellectual being; and what can follow
upon the privation of an excellency, but uuquietness and grief,
the moth of happiness ? An unrighteous man, as an unrighte-
ous man, can never be blessed, though he were in a local hea-
ven. Had God the least spot upon his purity, it would render
him as miserable in the midst of his infinite sufficiency, as ini-
quity renders a man in the confluence of his earthly enjoy-
ments. The holiness and felicity of God are inseparable in
him. The apostle intimates, that the heathen made an attempt
to sully his blessedness, when they would liken him to cor-
ruptible, mutable, impure man; they "changed the glory of
the incorruptible God, into an image made like to corruptible
man;" and after, he entitles God, a God blessed for ever, Rom.
i. 23. 25. The gospel is therefore called, "The glorious gospel
of the blessed God," 1 Tim. i. 11; in regard of the holiness of
the gospel precepts, and in regard of the declaration of the
holiness of God in all the streams and branches wherein his
purity, in which his blessedness consists, is as illustrious as any
other perfection of the Divine being. God has highly mani-
fested this attribute in the state of nature; in the legal admin-
istration; in the dispensation of the gospel. His wisdom,
goodness, and power, are declared in creation; his sovereign
authority, in his law; his grace and mercy, in the gospel; and
his righteousness, in all. Suitable to this threefold state, may
be that threefold repetition of his holiness in the prophecy, Isa.
vi. 3; holy as Creator and Benefactor; holy as Lawgiver and
Judge; holy as Restorer and Redeemer.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. J4Q

(1.) His holiness appears as he is Creator, in framing man
in a perfect uprightness. Angels, as made by God, conld not be
evil; for God beheld his own words with pleasure, and could
not have pronounced them all good, had some been created
pure, and others impure: two moral contrarieties conld not be
good. The angels had a first estate, wherein they were happy,
Jude 6; and had they not left their own habitation and state,
they could not have been miserable. But because the Scrip-
ture speaks Only of the creation of man, we will consider, that
the human nature was well strung and tuned by God, accord-
ing to the note of his own holiness, Eccl. vii. 29. " God has
made man upright:" he had declared his power in other crea-
tures, but would declare in his rational creature, what he most
valued in himself; and therefore created him upright, with a
wisdom which is the rectitude of the mind, with a purity which
is the rectitude of the will and affections. He had declared a
purity in other creatures, as much as they were capable of,
namely, in the exact tuning them to answer one another. And
that God who so well tuned and composed other creatures,
would not make man a jarring instrument, and place a cracked
creature to be lord of the rest of his earthly fabric. God being
holy, could not set his seal upon any rational creature, but the
impression would be like himself, pure and holy also: he could
not be created with an error in his understanding; that had
been inconsistent with the goodness of God to his rational
creature; if so, the erroneous motion of the will, which was to
follow the dictates of understanding,- could not have been im-
puted to him as his crime, because it would have been, not a
voluntary but a necessary effect of his nature; had there been
an error in the first wheel, the error of the next could not have
been imputed to the nature of that, but to the irregular motion
of the first wheel in the engine. The sin of men and angels
proceeded not from any natural defect in their understandings,
but from inconsideration. He that was the Author of harmony
in his other creatures, could not be the author of disorder in
the chief of his works : other creatures were his footsteps, but
man was his image, Gen. i. 26, 27. " Let us make man in our
image, after our likeness;" which though it seems to imply no
more in that place, than an image of his dominion over the
creatures, yet the apostle raises it a peg higher, and gives us a
larger interpretation of it, Col. iii. 10. " And have put on the
new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of
him that created him;" making it to consist in a resemblance
to his righteousness. Image, say some, notes the form, as man
was a spirit in regard of the soul; likeness notes the quality
implanted in his spiritual nature. The image of God was
drawn in him, both as he was a rational and as he was a holy
Vol. II.— 20

J 50 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

creature. The creatures manifested the being of a superior
power as their cause, but the righteousness of the first man
evidenced, not only a sovereign power, as the donor of his
being, but a holy power, as the pattern of his work: God
appeared to be a holy God in the righteousness of his creature,
as well as an understanding God in the reason of his creature,
while he formed him with all necessary knowledge in his
mind, and all necessary uprightness in his will. The law of
love to God, with his whole soul, his whole mind, his whole
heart and strength, was originally written upon his nature : all
the parts of his nature were framed in a moral conformity with
God, to answer this law, and imitate God in his purity, which
consists in a love of himself, and his own goodness and excel-
lency. Thus does the clearness of the stream point us to the
purer fountain, and the brightness of the beam evidence a
greater splendour in the sun which shot it out.

(2.) His holiness appears in his laws, as he is a Lawgiver,
and a Judge. Since man was bound to be subject to God, as
a creature, and had a capacity to be ruled by the law, as an
understanding and willing creature, God gave him a law taken
from the depths of his holy nature, and suited to the original
faculties of man. The rules which God has fixed in the world,
are not the resolves of bare will, but result particularly from
the goodness of his nature; they are nothing else but the tran-
scripts of his infinite detestation of sin, as he is the unblemished
Governor of the world. This being the most adorable pro-
perty of his nature, he has impressed it upon that law which
he would have inviolably observed as a perpetual rule for our
actions, that we may every moment think of this beautiful per-
fection. God can command nothing, but what has some simi-
litude with the rectitude of his own nature; all his laws, every
paragraph of them, therefore, scent of this, and glitter with it.
" What nation hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all
this law which I set before you this day?" Deut. iv. S; and
therefore they are compared to fine gold, that has no speck or
dross, Psal. xix. 10.

This purity is evident,

In the moral law, or law of nature. — In the ceremonial
]aw. — In the allurements annexed to it for keeping it, and the
affrightments to restrain from the breaking of it. — In the judg-
ments inflicted for the violation of it.

[1.] In the moral law: which is therefore dignified with the
title of holy twice in one verse, Rom. vii. 12. " Wherefore the
law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good;"
it being the express image of God's will, as our Saviour was
of his person, and bearing a resemblance to the purity of his
nature. The tables of this law were put into the ark, that as

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 15|

the mercy-seat was to represent the grace of God, so the law
was to represent the holiness of God. The psalmist, after he
had spoken of the glory of God in the heavens, Psal. xix. 1,
wherein the power of God is exposed to onr view, introduceth
the law, wherein the purity of God is evidenced to our minds,
ver. 7, S, &c. ; perfect, pure, clean, righteous, are the titles given
to it. It is clearer in holiness, than the sun is in brightness ;
and more mighty in itself to command the conscience, than the
sun is to run its race. As the holiness of the Scripture demon-
strates the Divinity of its Author; so the holiness of the law
doth the purity of the Lawgiver.

The purity of this law is seen in the matter of it. It pre-
scribes all that becomes a creature towards God, and all that
becomes one creature towards another of his own rank and
kind. The image of God is complete in the holiness of the first
table and the righteousness of the second ; which is intimated
by the apostle, Eph. iv. 24; the one being the rule of what we
owe to God, the other being the rule of what we owe to man:
there is no good but it enjoins, and no evil but it disowns. It is
not sickly and lame in any part of it ; not a good action, but it
gives it its due praise; and not an evil action, but it sets a con-
demning mark upon. The commands of it are frequently in
Scripture called judgments, because they rightly judge of good
and evil, and are a clear light to inform the judgment of man
in the knowledge of both. By this was the understanding of
David enlightened to know every false way, and to hate it,
Psal. cxix. 104. There is no case can happen, but may meet
with a determination from it; it teaches men the noblest man-
ner of living, a life like God himself; honourably for the Law-
giver, and joyfully for the subject. It directs us to the highest
end; sets us at a distance from all base and sordid practices; it
proposes light to the understanding, and goodness to the will.
It would tune all the strings, set right all the orders of man-
kind; it censures the least mote, countenances not any stain in
the life. Not a wanton glance can meet with any justification
from it, Matt. v. 28; nor a rash anger, but it frowns upon,
Matt. v. 22. As the Lawgiver wants nothing as an addition
to his blessedness, so his law wants nothing as a supplement to
its perfection, Dent. iv. 2. What our Saviour seems to add, is
not an addition to mend any defects; but a restoration of it
from the corrupt glosses, wherewith the scribes and pharisees
had eclipsed the brightness of it: they had curtailed it, and
diminished part of its authority, cutting off its empire over the
least evil, and left its power only to check the grosser practices.
But Christ restores it to the due extent of its sovereignty, ahd
shows it in those dimensions in which the holy men of God
considered it, as exceeding broad, Psal. cxix. 96; reaching to

|52 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

all actions, all motions, all circumstances attending them; full
of inexhaustible treasures of righteousness. And though this
law since the fall doe's irritate sin, it is no disparagement, but a
testimony to the righteousness of it; which the apostle mani-
fests by his " wherefore;" "sin taking occasion by the com-
mandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence," Rom.
vii. S ; and repeating the same sense, ver. 1 1, subjoins a " where-
fore," ver. 12. " Wherefore the law is holy." The rising of
men's sinful hearts against the law of God, when it strikes with
its preceptive and minatory parts upon their consciences, evi-
dences the holiness of the law and the Lawgiver.

In its own nature it is a directing rule, but the malignant
nature of sin is exasperated by it; as a hostile quality in a crea-
ture, will awaken itself at the appearance of its enemy. The
purity of this beam, and transcript of God, bears witness to a
greater clearness and beauty in the Sun and Original. Unde-
fined streams manifest an untainted fountain.

This holiness is also seen in the manner of its precepts. As
it prescribes all good, and forbids all evil ; so it does enjoin the
one, and banish the other as such. The laws of men command
virtuous things, not as virtuous in themselves, but as useful for
human society; which the magistrate is the conservator of, and
the guardian of justice. ! The laws of men contain not all the
precepts of virtue, but only such as are accommodated to their
customs, and are useful to preserve the ligaments of their gov-
ernment. The design of them is not so much to render the
subjects good men, as good citizens: they order the practice of
those virtues that may strengthen civil society, and discounte-
nance those vices only which weaken the sinews of it. But
God being the Guardian of universal righteousness, does not
only enact the observance of all righteousness, but the obser-
vance of it as righteousness. He commands that which is just
in itself; enjoins virtues as virtues, and prohibits vices as vices;
as they are profitable or injurious to ourselves, as well as to
others.

Men command temperance and justice, not as virtues in
themselves, but as they prevent disorder and confusion in a
commonwealth; and forbid adultery and theft, not as vices in
themselves, but as they are intrenchments upon property? not
as hurtful to the person that commits them, but as hurtful to
the person against whose right they are committed. Upon this
account, perhaps, Paul applauds the holiness of the law of God
in regard of its own nature, as considered in itself, more than
he does the justice of it in regard of man, and the goodness and
conveniency of it to the world; " the law is holy," twice, " and
just and good," but once, Rom. vii. 12.

1 Ames tie Consc. lib. 5. rap. 1. quest. 7.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. J53

It is also seen in the spiritual extent of it. The most righ-
teous powers of the world do not so much regard, in their laws,
what the inward affections of their subjects are: the external
acts are alone the objects of their decrees, either to encourage
them if they be useful, or discourage them if they be hurtful
to the community. And indeed they can do no other, for they
have no power proportioned to inward affections, since the in-
ward disposition falls not under their censure; and it would be
foolish for any legislative power to make such laws, which it is
impossible for it to put in execution. They can prohibit the
outward acts of theft and murder, but they cannot command
the love of God, the hatred of sin, the contempt of the world;
they cannot prohibit unclean thoughts, and the atheism of the
heart. But the law of God surmounts in righteousness all the
laws of the best regulated commonwealths in the world: it
restrains the licentious heart, as well as the violent hand; it
damps the very first bubblings of corrupt nature; orders a purity
in the spring; commands a clean fountain, clean streams, clean
vessels. It would frame the heart to an inward, as well as the
life to an outward righteousness, and make the inside purer
than the outside. It forbids the first risings of a murderous or
adulterous intention. It obliges man as a rational creature,
and therefore exacts a conformity of every rational faculty, and
of whatsoever is under the command of them. It commands
the private closet to be free from the least cobweb, as well as
the outward porch to be clean from mire and dirt. It frowns
upon all stains and pollutions of the most retired thoughts:
hence the apostle calls it a spiritual law, Rom. vii. 14; as not
political, but extending its force further than the frontiers of the
man ; placing its ensigns in the metropolis of the heart and
mind, and curbing with its sceptre the inward motions of the
spirit, and commanding the secrets of every man's breast.

It is also seen in regard of the perpetuity of it. The purity
and perpetuity of it are linked together by the Psalmist: "The
fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever," Psal. xix. 9; the
fear of the Lord, that is, that law which commands the fear and
worship of God, and is the rule of it. And, indeed, God values
it at such a rate, that rather than part with a tittle, or let the
honour of it lie in the dust, he would not only let heaven and
earth pass away, but expose his Son to death for the reparation
of the wrong it had sustained. So holy it is, that the holiness
and righteousness of God cannot dispense with it, cannot abro-
gate it, without despoiling himself of his own being: it is a
copy of the eternal law. Can he ever abrogate the command
of love to himself, without showing some contempt of his own
excellency and very being? Before he can enjoin a creature
not to love him, he must make himself unworthy of love, and

154 ON TIIE HOLINESS OF GOD.

worthy of hatred: this would be the highest unrighteousness,
to order us to hate that which is only worthy of our highest
affections. So God cannot change the first command, and order
us to worship many gods; this would be against the excellency
and unity of God : for God cannot constitute another god, or
make any thing worthy of an honour equal with himself.1
Those things that are good, only because they are commanded,
are alterable by God: those things that are intrinsically and
essentially good, and therefore commanded, are unalterable as
long as the holiness and righteousness of God stand firm. The
intrinsic goodness of the moral law, the concern God has for it,
the perpetuity of the precepts of the first table, and the care he
has had to imprint the precepts of the second upon the minds
and consciences ofimen, as the Author of nature for the preser-
vation of the world, manifest the holiness of the Lawmaker
and Governor.

[2.] His holiness appears in the ceremonial law. In the
variety of sacrifices for sin, wherein he wrote his detestation of
unrighteousness in bloody characters. His holiness was more
constantly expressed in the continual sacrifices, than in those
rarer sprinklings of judgments now and then upon the world;
which often reached not the worst, but the most moderate sin-
ners, and were the occasions of the questioning of the righte-
ousness of his providence both by Jews and gentiles. In judg-
ments his purity was only now and then manifest: by his long
patience, he might be imagined by some reconciled to their
crimes, or not much concerned in them; but by the morning
and evening sacrifice he witnessed a perpetual and uninterrupted
abhorrence of whatsoever was evil.

Besides those, the occasional washings and sprinklings upon
ceremonial defilements, which polluted only the body, gave an
evidence, that every thing that had a resemblance to evil was
loathsome to him. Add also the prohibitions of eating such and
such creatures that were filthy; as the swine that wallowed in
the mire, a fit emblem for the profane and brutish sinner; which
had a moral signification, both of the loathsomeness of sin to
God, and the aversion themselves ought to have to every thing
that was filthy.

[3.] His holiness appears in the allurements annexed to the
law for keeping it, and the affrightments to restrain from the
breaking of it. Both promises and threatenings have their fun-
damental root in the holiness of God, and are both branches of
this peculiar perfection. As they respect the nature of God,
they are declarations of his hatred of sin and his love of right-
eousness; the one belong to his threatenings, the other to his
promises; both join together to represent this Divine perfection

' Suarez.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. J 55

to the creature, and to excite to an imitation in the creature. In
the one God would render sin odious, because dangerous; and
curb the practice of evil, which would otherwise be licentious:
in the other, he would commend righteousness, and excite a love
of it, which would otherwise be cold. By these God suits the
two great affections of men, fear and hope; both the branches
of self-love in man: the promises and threatenings are both the
branches of holiness in God. The end of the promises, is the
same with the exhortation the apostle concludes from them;
"Having therefore these promises — let us cleanse ourselves
from all fikhiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in
the fear of God," 2 Cor. vii. 1. As the end of precepts is to
direct; the end of threatenings, is to deter from iniquity; so that
of the promises, is to allure to obedience. Thus God breathes
out his love to righteousness in every promise, his hatred of sin
in every threatening. The rewards offered in the one, are the
smiles of pleased holiness; and the curses thundered in the other,
are the sparklings of enraged righteousness.

[4.] His holiness appears in the judgments inflicted for the
violation of this law. Divine holiness is the root of Divine jus-
tice, and Divine justice is the triumph of Divine holiness. Hence
both are expressed in Scripture by one word of righteousness,
which sometimes signifies the rectitude of the Divine nature, and
sometimes the vindictive stroke of his arm; "The Lord exe-
cuteth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed,"
Psal. ciii. 6. So Dan. ix. 7. "Righteousness" (that is justice)
"belongeth unto thee." The vials of his wrath are filled from
his implacable aversion to iniquity.. All penal evils showered
down upon the heads of wicked men, spread their root in, and
branch out from this perfection. All the dreadful storms and
tempests in the world are blown up by it. Why does he " rain
snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest ?" because
"the righteous Lord loveth righteousness," Psal. xi. 6, 7. And
(as was observed before) when he was going about the most
dreadful work that ever was in the world; the overturning the
Jewish state, hardening the hearts of that unbelieving people,
and cashiering a nation (once dear to him) from the honour of
his protection; his holiness, as the spring of all this, is applauded
by the seraphim, Isa. vi. 3, compared with ver. 9 — 11, &c. Im-
punity argues the approbation of a crime, and punishment the
abhorrence of it. The greatness of the crime, and the right-
eousness of the Judge, are the first natural sentiments that arise
in the minds of men upon the appearance of Divine judgments
in the world, by those that are near them.1 As when men see
gibbets erected, scaffolds prepared, instruments of death and
torture provided, and grievous punishments inflicted; the first

1 Amyrant. Moral, torn. 5. p. 388.

156 ON tHe holiness of god.

reflection in the spectators, is the malignity of the crime, and
the detestation the governors are possessed with.

How severely has he punished his most noble creatures for
it! The once glorious angels, upon whom he had been at
greater cost than upon other creatures and drawn more lively
lineaments of his own excellency, upon the transgression of his
law, are thrown into the furnace of justice without any mercy
to pity them, Jude 6. And though there were but one sort of
creatures upon the earth that bore his image, and were alone
fit to publish and keep up his honour below the heavens; yet
upon their apostasy, (though upon a temptation from a subtle
and insinuating spirit,) the man, with all his posterity, is sen-
tenced to misery in life, and death at last; and the woman,
with all her sex, have standing punishments inflicted on them;
which as they begun in their persons, were to reach as far as
the last member of their successive generations. So holy is
God, that he will not endure a spot in his choicest work. Men
indeed, when there is a crack in an excellent piece of work, or
a stain upon a rich garment, do not cast it away; they value
it for the remaining excellency, more than hate it for the con-
tracted spot: but God saw no excellency in his creature worth
regarding, after the image of that which he most esteemed in
himself was defaced.

Plow detestable to him are the very instruments of sin! For
the ill use the serpent (an irrational creature) was put to by
the devil, as an instrument in the fall of man, the whole brood
of those animals are cursed, " Cursed above all cattle, and above
every beast of the field," Gen. iii. 14. Not only the devil's
head is threatened to be for ever bruised, and (as some think)
rendered irrecoverable upon this further testimony of his malice
in the seduction of man; who perhaps without this new act,
might have been admitted into the arms of mercy, notwith-
standing his first sin; (though the Scripture gives us no ac-
count of this, only this is the only sentence we read of pro-
nounced against the devil, which puts him into an irrecoverable
state by a mortal bruising of his head;) but, I say, he is not
only punished, but the organ whereby he blew in his tempta-
tion, is put into a worse condition than it was before. Thus
God hated the spunge, whereby the devil deformed his beauti-
ful image: thus God, to manifest his destation of sin, ordered
the beast whereby any man was slain, to be slain as well as the
malefactor, Exod. xxi. 28. The gold and silver that had been
abused to idolatry, and were the ornaments of images, though
good in themselves, and incapable of a criminal nature, were
not to be brought into their houses, but detested and abhorred
by them, because they were cursed, and an abomination to the
Lord. See with what loathing expressions this law is enjoined

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. I57

to them, Deut. vii. 25, 26. So contrary is the holy nature of
God to every sin, that it curses every thing that is instrumental
in it.

How detestable to him is every thing that is in the sinner's
possession! The very earth, which God had made Adam the
proprietor of, was cursed for his sake, Gen. iii. 17, 18. It lost
its beauty, and lies languishing to this day; and notwithstand-
ing the redemption by Christ, has not recovered its health, nor
is it like to do, till the completing the fruits of it upon the
children of God, Rom. viii. 20 — 22. The whole lower creation
was made subject to vanity, and put into pangs upon the sin
of man, by the righteousness of God detesting his offence.
How often has his implacable aversion from sin been shown,
not only in his judgments upon the offenders' person, but by
wrapping up in the same judgment those which stood in a near
relation to them! Achan, with his children and cattle, are over-
whelmed with stones, and burned together, Josh. vii. 24, 25.
In the destruction of Sodom, not only the grown malefactors,
but the young spawn, the infants, (at present incapable of the
same wickedness,) and their cattle, were burned up by the
same fire from heaven ; and the place where their habitations
stood, is at this day partly a heap of ashes, and partly an infec-
tious lake, that chokes any fish that swim into it from Jordan,
and stifles (as is related) by its vapour any bird that attempts
to fly over it. 0 how detestable is sin to God, that causes
him to turn a pleasant land, as the garden of the Lord, (as it is
styled, Gen. xiii. 10,) into a lake of sulphur; to make it, both
in his word and works, as a lasting monument of his abhor-
rence of evil!

What design has God in all these acts of severity and vin-
dictive justice, but to set off the lustre of his holiness? He tes-
tifies himself concerned for those laws, which he has set as
hedges and limits to the lusts of men; and therefore when he
breathes forth his fiery indignation against a people, he is said
to get himself honour; as when he intended the Red sea should
swallow up the Egyptian army, Exod. xiv. 17, 18; which
Moses in his triumphant song echoes back again, Exod. xv. 1.
"He hath triumphed gloriously;" gloriously in his holiness,
which is the glory of his nature; as Moses himself interprets it
in the text. When men will not own the holiness of God in a
way of duty, God will vindicate it in a way of justice and
punishment. In the destruction of Aaron's sons, that were
will-worshippers, and would take strange fire, sanctified and
glorified are coupled, Lev. x. 3. He glorified himself in that
act, in vindicating his holiness before all the .people, declaring
that he will not endure sin and disobedience. He does there-
fore in this life more severely punish the sins of his people,
Vol. II.— 21

J 58 ON THE HOLINESS OF OOD.

when they presume upon any act of disobedience; for a testi-
mony, that the nearness and deamess of any person to him,
shall not make him unconcerned in his holiness, or be a plea
for impurity. The end of all his judgments is to witness to the
world his abomination of sin. To punish and witness against
men, are one and the same thing, Mic. i. 2. " Let the Lord
be witness against you;" and it is the witness of God's holi-
ness, Hos. v. 5. " And the pride of Israel doth testify to his
face:" one renders it, the excellency of Israel, and understands
it of God; the word which is here in our translation pride, is
rendered excellency, Amos viii. 7. " The Lord hath sworn
by the excellency of Jacob;" which is interpreted holiness,
Amos iv. 2. " The Lord hath sworn by his holiness." What
is the issue or end of this swearing by holiness, and of his ex-
cellency testifying against them? In all those places you will
find them to be sweeping judgments; in one, Israel and
Ephraim shall fall in their iniquity; in another, He will take
them away with hooks, and their posterity with fish-hooks;
and in another, He would never forget any of their works.
He that punishes wickedness in those he before used with the
greatest tenderness, furnishes the world with an undeniable
evidence of the detestableness of it to him. Were not judg-
ments sometimes poured out upon the world, it would be
believed that God were rather an approver, than an enemy to
sin.

To conclude; -since God hath made a stricter law to guide
men, annexed promises above the merit of obedience to allure
them, and threatenings dreadful enough to affright men from
disobedience, he cannot be the cause of sin, nor a lover of it.
How can he be the author of that which he so severely forbids;
or love that which he delights to punish; or be fondly indul-
gent to any evil, when he hates the ignorant instruments in the
offences of his reasonable creatures?

(3.) The holiness of God appears in our restoration. It is in
the glass of the gospel we behold the glory of the Lord, 2 Cor.
hi. 18, that is, the glory of the Lord, into whose image we are
changed; but we are changed into nothing, as the image of
God, but into holiness. We bore not upon us by creation, nor
by regeneration, the image of any other perfection: we cannot
be changed into his omnipotence, omniscience, but into the
image of his righteousness. This is the pleasing and glorious
sight the gospel mirror darts in our eyes. The whole scene of
redemption is nothing else but a discovery of judgment and
righteousness; " Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and
her converts with righteousness," Isa. i. 27.

[1.] This holiness of God appears in the manner of our re»
storation, namely, by the death of Christ. Not all the vials of

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. ]59

judgments, that have, or shall be poured out upon the wicked
world, nor the flaming furnace of a sinner's conscience, nor the
irreversible sentence pronounced against the rebellious devils,
nor the groans of the damned creatures, give such a demonstra-
tion of God's hatred of sin, as the wrath of God let loose upon
his Son. Never did Divine holiness appear more beautiful and
lovely, than at the time our Saviour's countenance was most
marred in the midst of his dying groans. This himself ac-
knowledges in that prophetical psalm, Psa. xxii. 1,2; when
God had turned his smiling face from him, and thrust his sharp
knife into his heart, which forced that terrible cry from him,
" My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" He adores
this perfection of holiness, ver. 3. "But thou art holy:" thy
holiness is the spring of all this sharp agony, and for this thou
inhabitest, and shalt for ever inhabit the praises of all thy Israel.
Holiness drew the veil between God's countenance and our
Saviour's soul. Justice indeed gave the stroke, but holiness
ordered it. In this his purity did sparkle, and his irreversible
justice manifested that all those that commit sin are worthy of
death; this was the perfect index of his righteousness, Rom. iii.
26, that is, of his holiness and truth; then it was that God that
is holy, was sanctified in righteousness, Isa. v. 16.

It appears the more, if you consider,

The dignity of the Redeemer's person. One that had been
from eternity; had laid the foundations of the world; had been
the object of the Divine delight. He that was God blessed for
ever, becomes a curse: he who was blessed by angels, and by
whom God blessed the world, must be seized with horror: the
Son of eternity must bleed to death. Where did ever sin ap-
pear so irreconcilable to God? Where did God ever break out
so furiously in his detestation of iniquity? The Father would
have the most excellent Person, one next in order to himself,
and equal to him in all the glorious perfections of his nature,
Phil. ii. 6, die on a disgraceful cross, and be exposed to the
flames of Divine wrath, rather than sin should live, and his
holiness remain for ever disparaged by the violations of his law.

The near relation he stood in to the Father. He was his
own Son that he delivered up, Rom. viii. 32; his essential
image, as dearly beloved by him as himself; yet he would
abate nothing of his hatred of those sins imputed to one so
dear to him, and who never had done any thing contrary to
his will. The strong cries uttered by him could not cause him
to cut off the least fringe of this royal garment, nor part with
a thread the robe of his holiness was woven with. The torrent
of wrath is opened upon him, and the Father's heart beats not
in the least notice of tenderness to sin, in the midst of his Son's
agonies. God seems to lay aside the bowels of a Father, and

IQQ ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

put on the garb of an irreconcilable enemy.1 Upon which ac-
count, probably, our Saviour in the midst of his passion gives
him the title of God, not of Father, the title he usually before
addressed him with; (i My God, my God," not, My Father,
my Father, "why hast thou forsaken me?" Matt, xxvii. 46.
He seems to hang upon the cross like a disinherited Son, while
he appeared in the garb and rank of a sinner. Then was his
head loaded with curses, when he stood under that sentence of
" Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree," Gal. hi. 13, and
looked as one forlorn and rejected by the Divine purity and
tenderness. God dealt not with him, as if he had been one in
so near a relation to him. He left him not to the will only of
the instruments of his death, he would have the chiefest blow
himself of bruising of him, " It pleased the Lord to bruise
him," Isa. liii. 10: the Lord, because the power of creatures
could not strike a blow strong enough, to satisfy and secure
the rights of infinite holiness. It was therefore a cup tempered
and put into his hands by his Father; a cup given him to drink.
In other judgments he lets out his wrath against his creatures;
in this he lets out his wrath (as it were) against himself, against
his Son, one as dear to him as himself. As in his making crea-
tures, his power over nothing to bring it into being appeared;
but in pardoning sin he has power over himself; so in punish-
ing creatures, his holiness appears in his wrath against creatures,
against sinners by inherency: but by punishing sin in his Son,
his holiness sharpens his wrath against him who was his equal,
and only a reputed sinner; as if his affection to his own holi-
ness surmounted his affection to his Son. For he chose to sus-
pend the breakings out of his affections to his Son, and see him
plunged in a sharp and ignominious misery, without giving
him any visible token of his love, rather than see his holiness
lie groaning under the injuries of a transgressing world.

The value he puts upon his holiness appears further, in the
advancement of this redeeming Person after his death. Our
Saviour was advanced, not barely for his dying, but for the re-
spect he had in his death to this attribute of God. " Thou hast
loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, even
thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness," Heb. i.
9. By righteousness is meant this perfection, because of the
opposition of it to iniquity. Some think " therefore" to be
the final cause; as if this were the sense, Thou art anointed
with the oil of gladness, that thou Brightest love righteousness
and hate iniquity. But the Holy Ghost seeming to speak in
this chapter, not only of the Godhead of Christ, but of his ex-
altation; the doctrine whereof he had begun in verse 3, and
prosecutes in the following verses; I would rather understand

i Lingcnd. torn. 3. p. 699, 700.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

161

" therefore," for this cause, or reason, hath God anointed thee ;
not, to this end. Christ indeed had an unction of grace, where-
by he was fitted for his mediatory work; he had also an unc-
tion of glory, whereby he was rewarded for it. In the first
regard, it was a qualifying him for his office; in the second re-
gard, it was a solemn inaugurating him in his royal authority.
And the reason of his being settled upon a throne for ever and
ever, is, because he loved righteousness. He suffered himself
to be pierced to death, that sin, the enemy of God's purity,
might be destroyed, and the honour of the law, the image of
God's holiness, might be repaired and fulfilled in the fallen
creature. He restored the credit of Divine holiness in the world,
in manifesting by his death, God, an irreconcilable enemy to
all sin; in abolishing the empire of sin, so hateful to God, and
restoring the rectitude of nature and new framing the image of
God in his chosen ones.

And God so valued this vindication of his holiness, that he
confers upon him, in his human nature, an eternal royalty and
empire over angels and men. Holiness was the great attribute
respected by Christ in his dying, and manifested in his death;
and for his love to this, God would bestow an honour upon his
person, in that nature wherein he did vindicate the honour of
so dear a perfection. In the death of Christ, he showed his
resolution to preserve its rights. In the exaltation of Christ, he
evidenced his mighty pleasure for the vindication of it. In
both, the infinite value he had for it, as dear to him as his life
and glory.

It may be further considered, that in this way of redemption,
his holiness in the hatred of sin seems to be valued above any
other attribute. He proclaims the value of it above the person
of his Son; since the Divine nature of the Redeemer is dis-
guised, obscured, and veiled, in order to the restoring the
honour of it. And Christ seems to value it above his own per-
son, since he submitted himself to the reproaches of men, to
clear this perfection of the Divine nature, and make it illus-
trious in the eyes of the world. You heard before, at the be-
ginning of the handling this argument, it was the beauty of the
Deity, the lustre of his nature, the link of all his attributes, his
very life; he values it equally with himself, since he swears by
it, as well as by his life. And none of his attributes would
have a due decorum without it: it is the glory of power,
mercy, justice, wisdom, that they are all holy. So that though
God has an infinite tenderness and compassion to the fallen
creature, yet it should not extend itself in his relief to the pre-
judice of the rights of his purity: he would have this triumph
in the tenderness of his mercy, as well as the severities of his
justice. His mercy had not appeared in its true colours, nor

152 0N THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

attained a regular end, without vengeance on sin. It would
have been a compassion, that would (in sparing the sinner)
have encouraged the sin, and affronted holiness in the issues of
it: had he dispersed his compassions about the world without
the regard to his hatred of sin, his mercy had been too cheap,
and his holiness had been contemned. His mercy would not
have triumphed in his own nature, whilst his holiness had
suffered: he had exercised a mercy with the impairing of his
own glory.

But now in this way of redemption, the rights of both are
secured, both have their due lustre: the odiousness of sin is
equally discovered with the greatness of his compassions; an
infinite abhorrence of sin, and an infinite love to the world,
march hand in hand together. Never was so much of his irre-
concilableness to sin set forth, as in the moment he was open-
ing his love in the reconciliation of the sinner. Sin is made the
chiefest mark of his displeasure, while the poor creature is
made the highest object of Divine pity. There could have
been no motion of mercy, with the least injury to purity and
holiness. In this way mercy and truth, mercy to the misery of
the creature, and truth to the purity of the law, have met to-
gether; the righteousness of God and the peace of the sinner
have kissed each other, Psal. lxxxv. 10.

[2.] The holiness of God in his hatred of sin appears in our
justification, and the conditions he requires of all that would
enjoy the benefit of redemption. His wisdom has so tempered
all the conditions of it, that the honour of his holiness is as
much preserved, as the sweetness of his mercy is experienced
by us. All the conditions are records of his exact purity, as
well as of his condescending grace. Our justification is not by
the imperfect work of creatures, but by an exact and infinite
righteousness, as great as that of the Deity, which had been
offended: it being the righteousness of a Divine person, upon
which account it is called the righteousness of God; not only
in regard of God's appointing it, and God's accepting it, but as
it is a righteousness of that person that was God, and is God.
Faith is the condition God requires to justification; but not a
dead, but an active faith, such a faith as purifies the heart,
James ii. 20. Acts xv. 9. He calls for repentance, which is a
moral retracting of our offences, and an approbation of con-
temned righteousness and a violated law; an endeavour to re-
gain what is lost, and to pluck out the heart of that sin we
have committed. He requires mortification, which is called
crucifying; whereby a man would strike as full and deadly a
blow at his lusts, as was struck at Christ upon the cross, and
make them as certainly die as the Redeemer did.

Our own righteousness must be condemned by us, as impure

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 1(J3

and imperfect: we must disown everything that is our own, as
to righteousness, in reverence to the holiness of God, and the
valuation of the righteousness of Christ. He has resolved, not
to bestow the inheritance of glory, without the root of grace.
None are partakers of the Divine blessedness, that are not par-
takers of the Divine nature: there must be a renewing of his
image, before there be a vision of his face, Heb. xii. 14. He
will not have men brought merely into a relative state of hap-
piness by justification, without a real state of grace by sanctifi-
cation. And so resolved he is in it, that there is no admittance
into heaven of a starting, but of a persevering holiness; a pa-
tient continuance in well doing, Rom. ii. 7; patient under the
sharpness of affliction, and continuing under the pleasures of
prosperity. Hence it is that the gospel, the restoring doctrine,
has not only the motives of rewards to allure us to good, and
the danger of punishments to scare us from evil, as the law
had; but they are set forth in a higher strain, in a way of
stronger engagement, the rewards are heavenly, and the
punishments eternal; and more powerful motives besides, from
the choicer expressions of God's love in the death of his Son.
The whole design of it is to re-instate us in a resemblance to
this Divine perfection; whereby he shows what an affection he
has to this excellency of his nature, and what a detestation he
has of evil, which is contrary to it.

[3.] It appears in the actual regeneration of the redeemed
souls, and a carrying it on to a full perfection. As election is
the effect of God's sovereignty, our pardon the fruit of his
mercy, our knowledge a stream from his wisdom, our strength
an impression of his power; so our purity is a beam from his
holiness. The whole work of sanctification, and the preserva-
tion of it, our Saviour begs for his disciples of his Father, un-
der this title: Holy Father, keep them through thy own name,
and sanctify them through thy truth, John xvii. 11. 17, as the
proper source whence holiness was to flow to the creature; as
the sun is the proper fountain whence light is derived, both to the
stars above, and bodies here below. Whence he is not only
called holy, but the Holy One of Israel; " I am the Lord, your
Holy One, the Creator of Israel," Isa. xlii. 15; displaying his
holiness in them, by a new creation of them as his Israel. As
the rectitude of the creature at the first creation was the effect
of his holiness ; so the purity of the creature by a new creation
is a draught of the same perfection. He is called the Holy
One of Israel more in Isaiah, that evangelical prophet, in erect-
ing Zion, and forming a people for himself, than in the whole
Scripture besides. As he sent Jesus Christ to satisfy his justice
for the expiation of the guilt of sin; so he sends the Holy Ghost
for the cleansing the filth of sin, and overmastering the power

1(34 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

of it: himself is the fountain, the Son is the pattern, and the
Holy Ghost the immediate imprinter of this stamp of holiness
upon the creature. God has such a value for this attribute,
that he designs the glory of this in the renewing the creature,
more than the happiness of the creature; though the one does
necessarily follow upon the other, yet the one is the principal
design, and the other the consequent of the former: whence our
salvation is more frequently set forth, in Scripture, by a re-
demption from sin, and sanctification of the soul, than by a pos-
session of heaven. 1

Indeed, as God could not create a rational creature, without
interesting this attribute in a special manner; so he cannot res-
tore the fallen creature without it. As in creating a rational
creature, there must be holiness to adorn it, as well as wisdom
to form the design, and power to effect it; so in the restoration
of the creature, as he could not make a reasonable creature un-
holy ; so he cannot restore a fallen creature, and put him in a
meet posture to take pleasure in him, without communicating
to him a resemblance of himself. As God cannot be blessed
in himself without this perfection of purity; so neither can a
creature be blessed without it. As God would be unlovely to
himself without this attribute; so would the creature be un-
lovely to God, without a stamp and mark of it upon his nature.
So much is this perfection one with God, valued by him, and
interested in all his works and ways.

3. The third thing I am to do, is to lay down some proposi-
tions in the defence of God's holiness in all his acts about or
concerning sin. It was a prudent and pious advice of Camero,
not to be too busy and rash in inquiries and conclusions about
the reason of God's providence in the matter of sin. The Scrip-
ture has put a bar in the way of such curiosity, by telling us,
that the ways of God's wisdom and righteousness in his judg-
ments are unsearchable, Rom. xi. 33. Much more the ways
of God's holiness, as he stands in relation to sin, as a Governor
of the world. We cannot consider those things without dan-
ger of slipping: our eyes are too weak to look upon the sun
without being dazzled : too much curiosity met with a just
check in our first parent. To be desirous to know the reason
of all God's proceedings in the matter of sin, is to second the
ambition of Adam to be as wise as God, and know the reason
of his actings equally with himself. It is more easy, as the
same author says, to give an account of God's providence
since the revolt of man, and the poison that has universally
seized upon human nature, than to make guesses at the man-
ner of the fall of the first man. The Scripture has given us but
a short account of the manner of it, to discourage too curious
inquiries into it.

1 Tit. ii. 11 — 14, and many other places.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. J 55

It is certain that God made man upright; and when man sin-
ned in paradise, God was active in sustaining ihe substantial
nature and act of the sinner while he was sinning, though not
in supporting the sinfulness of the act. He was permissive in
suffering it: he was negative in withholding that grace which
might certainly have prevented his crime, and consequently his
ruin; though he withheld nothing that was sufficient for his
resistance of that temptation wherewith he was assaulted. And
since the fall of man, God, as a wise Governor, is directive of
the events of the transgression, and draws the choicest good out
of the blackest evil, and limits the sins of men, that they creep
not so far as the evil nature of men would urge them to ; and
as a righteous Judge, he takes away the talent from idle ser-
vants, and the light from wicked ones, whereby they stumble
and fall into crimes by the inclinations and proneness of their
own corrupt natures; leaves them to the bias of their own vici-
ous habits, denies that grace which they have forfeited, and
have no right to challenge; and turns their sinful actions into
punishments, both to the committers of them, and others.

Prop. (1.) God's holiness is not chargeable with any blem-
ish for his creating man in a mutable state. It is true, angels
and men were created with a changeable nature; and though
there was a. rich and glorious stamp upon them by the hand of
God, yet their natures were not incapable of a base and vile
stamp from some other principle; as the silver which bears
upon it the image of a great prince, is capable of being melted
down, and imprinted with no better an image than that of some
vile and monstrous beast. Though God made man upright, yet
he was capable of seeking many inventions, Eccl. vii. 29; yet
the hand of God was not defiled by forming man with such a
nature. It was suitable to the wisdom of God to give the ra-
tional creature, whom he had furnished with a power of acting
righteously, the liberty of choice, and not fix him in an un-
changeable state, without a trial of him in his natural; that if
he did obey, his obedience might be the more valuable; and if
he did freely offend, hie offence might be more inexcusable.

[1.] No creature can be capable of immutability by nature.
Mutability is so essential to a creature, that a creature cannot be
supposed without it: you must suppose it a Creator, not a crea-
ture, if you allow it to be of an immutable nature. Immuta-
bility is the property of the Supreme Being. God only has im-
mortality, 1 Tim. vi. 16; immortality, as opposed not only to a
natural, but to a sinful death; the word "only" appropriates
every sort of immortality to God, and excludes every creature,
whether angel or man, from a partnership with God in this by
nature. Every creature therefore is capable of a death in sin.
None is good but God, and none is naturally free from change
Vol. II.— 22

1(56 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

but God; which excludes every creature from the same prero-
gative; and certainly if one angel sinned, all might have sinned,
because there was the same root of mutability in one as well as
another. It is as possible for a creature to be a Creator as for
a creature to have naturally an incommunicable property of the
Creator. All things, whether angels or men, are made of no-
thing, and therefore capable of defection;1 because a creature
being made of nothing, cannot be good per essentiam, or es-
sentially good, but by participation from another. Again,
every rational creature, being made of nothing, has a Superior
which created him and governs him, and is capable of a pre-
cept; and consequently capable of disobedience as well as
obedience to the precept, to transgress it as well as obey
it. God cannot sin, because he can have no superior to impose
a precept on him. A rational creature, with a liberty of will
and power of choice, cannot be made by nature of such a mould
and temper, but he must be as well capable of choosing wrong,
as of choosing right; and therefore the standing angels and glo-
rified saints, though they are immutable, it is not by nature they
are so, but by grace, and the good pleasure of God; for though
they are in heaven, they have still in their nature a remote
power of sinning, but it shall never be brought into act, because
God will always incline their wills to love him, and never con-
cur with their wills to any evil act. Since therefore mutability
is essential to a creature, as a creature, this changeableness can-
not properly be charged upon God as the author of it; for it was
not the term of God's creating act, but did necessarily result
from the nature of the creature, as unchangeableness does result
.from the essence of God. The brittleness of a glass is no blame
to the art of him that blew up the glass into such a fashion;
that imperfection of brittleness is not from the workman, but the
matter: so though changeableness be an imperfection, yet it is
so necessary a one, that no creature can be -naturally without
it. Besides, though angels and men were mutable by creation,
and capable to exercise their wills, yet they were not necessi-
tated to evil; and this mutability did not infer a necessity that
they should fall; because some angels, which had the same root
of changeableness in their natures with those that fell, did not
fall, which they would have done, if capableness of changing
and necessity of changing were one and the same thing.

[2.] Though God made the creature mutable, yet he made
him not evil. There could be nothing of evil in him that God
created after his own image, and pronounced good, Gen. i. 27.
31. Man had an ability to stand, as well as a capacity to fall:
he was created with a principle of acting freely, whereby he
was capable of loving God as his chief good, and moving to
' Suarez. vol. 2. p. r» 1-

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. J 57

him as his last end; there was a beam of light in man's under-
standing to know the rule he was to conform to, a harmony
between his reason and his affections, an original righteous-
ness; so that it seemed more easy for him to determine his will
to continue in obedience to the precept, than to swerve from it ;
to adhere to God as his chief good, than to listen to the charms
of Satan. God created him with those advantages, that he
might with more facility have kept his eyes fixed upon the
Divine beauty, than turn his back upon it ; and with greater
ease have kept the precept God gave him, than have broken it.
The very first thought darted or impression made by God upon
the angelic or human nature, was the knowledge of himself as
their Author, and could be no other than such whereby both
angels and men might be excited to a love of that adorable
Being that had framed them so gloriously out of nothing : and
if they turned their wills and affections to another object, it
was not by the direction of God, but contrary to the impression
God had made upon them, or the first thought he flashed into
them : they turned themselves to the admiring their own ex-
cellency, or affecting an advantage distinct from that which
they were to look for only from God. Pride was the cause of
the condemnation of the devil, 1 Tim. iii. 6. Though the wills
of angels and men were created mutable, and so were imper-
fect, yet they were not created evil. Though they might sin,
yet they might not sin, and therefore were not evil in their own
nature. What reflection then could this mutability of their na-
ture be upon God? So far is it from any, that he is fully clear-
ed,, by storing up in the nature of man sufficient provision
against his departure from him. God was so far from creating
him evil, that he fortified him with a knowledge in his under-
standing, and a strength in his nature to withstand any inva-
sion. The knowledge was exercised by Eve in the very mo-
ment of the serpent's assaulting her; Eve said to the serpent,
" God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it," Gen. iii. 3: and had
her thoughts been intent upon this, "God hath said," and not
diverted to the motives of the sensitive appetite and liquorish
palate, it had been sufficient to put by all the passes the devil
did or could have made at her. So that you see, though God
made the creature mutable, yet he made him not evil. This
clears the holiness of God.

[3.] Therefore it follows, that though God created man
changeable, yet he was not the cause of his change by his fall.
Though man was created defectible, yet he was not determined
by God, influencing his will by any positive act to that change
and apostasy. God placed him in a free posture, set life and
happiness before him on the one hand, misery and death on
the other: as he did not draw him into the arms of perpetual

168 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

blessedness, so he did not drive him into the gulf of his misery;
he did not incline him to evil.1 It was repugnant to the good-
ness of God to corrupt the righteousness of those faculties he
had so lately beautified him with. It was not likely he should
deface the beauty of that work he had composed with so much
wisdom and skill. Would he by any act of his own make
that bad, which but a little before he had acquiesced in as
good? Angels and men were left to their liberty, and the con-
duct of their natural faculties; and if God inspired them with
any motions, they could not but be motions to good, and suited
to that righteous nature he had endued them with. But it is
most probable that God did not in a supernatural way act in-
wardly upon the mind of man, but left him wholly to that
power which he had in creation furnished him with. The
Scripture frees God fully from any blame in this, and lays it
wholly upon Satan as the tempter, and upon man as the deter-
miner of his own will. Eve took of the fruit, and did eat; and
Adam took from her of the fruit, and did eat, Gen. iii. 6. And
Solomon distinguishes God's works in the creation of man
upright, from man's work in seeking out those ruining inven-
tions, Eccl. vii. 29. God created man in a righteous state, and
man cast himself into a forlorn state. As he was a mutable
creature, he was from God; as he was a changed and corrupt-
ed creature, it was from the devil seducing, and his own pliable-
ness in admitting; as silver, and gold, and other metals, were
created by God in such a form and figure, yet capable of re-
ceiving other forms by the industrious art of man. When the
image of a man is put upon a piece of metal, God is not said
to create that image, though he created the substance with
such a property, that it was capable of receiving it: this capa-
city is from the nature of the metal by God's creation of it, but
the carving the figure of this or that man, is not the act of God,
but the act of man; as images in Scripture are called the work
of men's hands, in regard of the imagery, though the matter,
wood or stone, upon which the image was carved, was a work
of God's creative power. When an artificer frames an excel-
lent instrument, and a musician exactly tunes it, and it comes
out of their hands without a blemish, but capable to be untuned
by some rude hand, or receive a crack by a sudden fall; if it
meet with a disaster, is either the workman or musician to be
blamed? The ruin of a house, caused by the wastefulness or
carelessness of the tenant, is not to be imputed to the workman
that built it strong, and left it in a good posture.

Prop. (2.) God's holiness is not blemished by enjoining man
a law, which he knew he would not observe.

[1.] The law was not above his strength. Had the law been
impossible to be observed, no crime could have been imputed

1 Aniyral. Moral, torn. 1. p. 615, G16.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

169

to the subject, the fault had lain wholly upon the Governor;
the non-observance of it had been from a want of strength,
and not from a want of will. Had God commanded Adam to
fly up to the sun, when he had not given him wings, Adam
might have a will to obey to it, but his power would be too
short to perform it. But the law set him for a rule, had no-
thing of impossibility in it; it was easy to be observed; the
command was rather below than above his strength; and the
sanction of it was more apt to restrain and scare him from the
breach of it, than encourage any daring attempts against it.
He had as much power, or rather more, to conform to it, than
to warp from it, and greater arguments and interest to be ob-
servant of it than to violate it; his all was secured by the one,
and his ruin ascertained by the other. The commands of God
are not grievous, 1 John v. 3; from the first to the last com-
mand there is nothing impossible, nothing hard to the original
and created nature of man, which were all summed up in a
love to God, which was the pleasure and delight of man, as
well as his duty, if he had not by inconsiderateness neglected
the dictates and resolves of his own understanding. The law
was suited to the strength of man, and fitted for the improve-
ment and perfection of his nature: in which respect the apostle
calls it good, as it refers to man, as well as holy, as it refers to
God, Rom. vii. 12. Now since God created man a creature
capable to be governed by a law, and as a rational creature
endued with understanding and will, not to be governed accord-
ing to his nature without a law; was it congruous to the wis-
dom of God to respect only the future state of man, which,
from the depth of his infinite knowledge, he did infallibly fore-
see would be miserable, by the wilful defection of man from
the rule ? Had it been agreeable to the wisdom of God to re-
spect only this future state, and not the present state of the
creature; and therefore leave him lawless, because he knew he
would violate the law ? Should God forbear to act like a wise
Governor, because he foresaw that man would cease to act
like an obedient subject? Shall a righteous magistrate forbear
to make just and good laws, because he foresees, either from
the dispositions of his subjects, their ill humour, or some cir-
cumstances which will intervene, that multitudes of them will
incline to break those laws, and fall under the penalty of them?
No blame can be upon that magistrate who minds the rule of
righteousness, and the necessary duty of his government, since
he is not the cause of those turbulent affections in men, which
he wisely foresees will rise up against his just edicts.

[2.] Though the law now be above the strength of man, yet
is not the holiness of God blemished by keeping it up. It is
true, God has been graciously pleased to mitigate the severity

|70 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

and rigour of the law by the entrance of the gospel; yet where
men refuse the terms of the gospel, they continue themselves
under the condemnation of the law, and are justly guilty of the
breach of it, though they have no strength to observe it. The
law, as I said before, was not above man's strength when he
was possessed of original righteousness, though it be above
man's strength since he was stripped of original righteousness.
The command was dated before man had contracted his impo-
tency, when he had a power to keep it as well as to break it.
Had it been enjoined to man only after the fall, and not before,
he might have had a better pretence to excuse himself, because
of the impossibility of it; yet he would not have had sufficient
excuse, since the impossibility did not result from the nature of
the law, but from the corrupted nature of the creature. It was
weak through the flesh, Rom. viii. 3; but it was promulged
when man had a strength proportioned to the commands of it.
And now since man has unhappily made himself incapable of
obeying it, must God's holiness in his law be blemished for en-
joining it? Must he abrogate those commands, and prohibit
what before he enjoined, for the satisfaction of the corrupted
creature? would not this be his ceasing to be holy, that his
creature might be unblamably unrighteous? Must God strip
himself of his holiness, because man will not discharge his
iniquity ? He cannot be the cause of sin, by keeping up the
law, who would be the cause of all the unrighteousness of
men, by removing the authority of it. Some things in the law
that are intrinsically good in their own nature are indispensa-
ble, and it is repugnant to the nature of God not to command
them. If he were not the guardian of his indispensable law,
he would be the cause and countenancer of the creature's ini-
quity. So little reason have men to charge God with being the
cause of their sin, by not repealing his law to gratify their im-
potence, that he would be unholy if he did. God must not lose
his purity because man has lost his, and cast away the right of
his sovereignty because man has cast away his power of obe-
dience.

[3.] God's foreknowledge that his law would not be observ-
ed, lays no blame upon him. Though the foreknowledge of
God be infallible, yet it does not necessitate the creature in act-
ing. It was certain from eternity that Adam would fall, that
men would do such and such actions, that Judas would betray
our Saviour; God foreknew all those things from eternity; but
it is as certain that this foreknowledge did not necessitate the
will of Adam, or any other branch of his posterity, in the doing
those actions that were so foreseen by God; they voluntarily
ran into such courses, not by any impulsion. God's knowledge
was not suspended between certainty and uncertainty: he cer-

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. \<J ±

tainly foreknew that his law would be broken by Adam; he
foreknew it in his own decree of not hindering him, by giving
Adam the efficacious grace which would infallibly have pre-
vented it; yet Adam did freely break this law, and never im-
agined that the foreknowledge of God did necessitate him to it.
He could find no cause of his own sin, but the liberty of his
own will: he charges the occasion of his sin upon the woman,
and consequently upon God in giving the woman to him, Gen.
iii. 12. He could not be so ignorant of the nature of God, as to
imagine him without a foresight of future things, since his
knowledge of what was to be known of God by creation, was
greater than any man's since, in all probability. But however,
if he were not acquainted with the notion of God's foreknow-
ledge, he could not be ignorant of his own act; there could not
have been any necessity upon him, any kind of constraint of
him in his action that could have been unknown to him; and
he would not have omitted a plea of so strong a nature, when
he was upon his trial for life or death; especially when he
urges so weak an argument to impute his crime to God, as the
gift of the woman; as if that which was designed him for a
help, were intended for his ruin. If God's prescience takes
away the liberty of the creature, there is no such thing as a free
action in the world, (for there is nothing done but is foreknown
by God, else we render God of a limited understanding,) nor
ever was, no not by God himself ad.extrcu for whatsoever he
has done in creation, whatsoever he has done since the crea-
tion, was foreknown by him; he resolved to do it, and there-
fore foreknew that he would do it. Did God do it therefore
necessarily, as necessity is opposed to liberty? As he freely
decrees what he will do, so he effects what he freely decreed.
Foreknowledge is so far from intrenching upon the liberty of
the will, that predetermination, which in the notion of it speaks
something more, does not dissolve it; God did not only fore-
know, but determine the suffering of Christ, Acts iv. 27, 28. It
was necessary therefore that Christ should suffer, that God
might not be mistaken in his foreknowledge, or come short of
his determinate decree: but did this take away the liberty of
Christ in suffering, who offered himself up to God, Eph. v. 2,
that is, by a voluntary act, as well as designed to do it by a
determinate counsel? It did infallibly secure the event, but did
not annihilate the liberty of the action, either in Christ's wil-
lingness to suffer, or the crime of the Jews that made him
suffer. God's prescience is God's pre-vision of things arising
from their proper causes: as a gardener foresees in his plants
the leaves and the flowers that will arise from them in the
spring, because he knows the strength and nature of their seve-
ral roots which lie under ground; but his foresight of these

1 72 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

things is not the cause of the rise and appearance of those
flowers. If any of us see a ship moving towards such a rock or
quick-sand, and know it to be governed by a negligent pilot,
we shall certainly foresee that the ship will be torn in pieces by
the rock, or swallowed up by the sands; but is this foresight of
ours from the causes, any cause of the effect, or can we from
hence be said to be the authors of the miscarriage of the ship,
and the loss of the passengers and goods? The fall of Adam
was foreseen by God to come to pass by the consent of his free
will in the choice of the proposed temptation: God foreknew
Adam would sin, and if Adam would not have sinned, God
would have foreknown that he would not sin. Adam might
easily have detected the serpent's fraud, and made a better
election; God foresaw that he would not do it; God's fore-
knowledge did not make Adam guilty or innocent; whether
God had foreknown it or not, he was guilty by a free choice,
and a willing neglect of his own duty. Adam knew that God
foreknew that he might eat of the fruit, and fall and die, be-
cause God had forbidden him: the foreknowledge that he
would do it, was no more a cause of his action, than the fore-
knowledge that he might do it. Judas certainly knew that his
Master foreknew that he should betray him, for Christ had ac-
quainted him with it, John xiii. 21. 26; yet he never charged
this foreknowledge of Christ with any guilt of his treachery.

Prop. (3.) The holiness of God is not blemished by decree-
ing the eternal rejection of some men. Reprobation in its first
notion is an act of pretention, or passing by. A man is not
made wicked by the act of God; but it supposes him wicked;
and so it is nothing else but God's leaving a man in that guilt
and filth wherein he beholds him. In its second notion it is an
ordination, not to a crime but to a punishment; an ordaining to
condemnation, Jude 4. And though it be an eternal act of
God, yet in order of nature it follows upon the foresight of the
transgression of man, and supposes the crime. God considers
Adam's revolt, and views the whole mass of his corrupted pos-
terity, and chooses some to reduce to himself by his grace, and
leaves others to lie sinking in their ruins. Since all mankind
fell by the fall of Adam, and have corruption conveyed to them
successively by that root whereof they are branches; all men
might be justly left wallowing in that miserable condition to
which they were reduced by the apostasy of their common
head; and God might have passed by the whole race of man,
as well as he did the fallen angels, without any hope of re-
demption. He was no more bound to restore man than to
restore devils, nor bound to repair the nature of any one son of
Adam; and had he dealt with men as he dealt with the devils,
they had had all of them as little just ground to complain of

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. J73

God; for all men deserved to be left to themselves, for all
were concluded under sin. But God calls out some to make
monuments of his grace, which is an act of the sovereign
mercy of that dominion whereby he has mercy on whom he
will have mercy, Rom. ix. 18. Others he passes by, and leaves
them remaining in that corruption of nature wherein they were
born. If men have a power to dispose of their own goods,
without any unrighteousness, why should not God dispose of
his own grace, and bestow it upon whom he pleases, since it is
a debt to none, but a free gift to any that enjoy it ? God is
not the cause of sin in this, because his operation about this is
negative; it is not an action, but a denial of action, and there-
fore cannot be the cause of the evil actions of men.1 God acts
nothing, but withholds his power; he does not enlighten their
minds, nor incline their wills so powerfully, as to expel then-
darkness, and root out those evil habits which possess them by
nature. God could, if he would, savingly enlighten the minds
of all men in the world, and quicken their hearts with a new
life by an invincible grace; but in not doing it, there is no posi-
tive act of God, but a cessation of action. We may with as
much reason say, that God is the cause of all the sinful actions
that are committed by the corporation of devils, since their first
rebellion, because he leaves them to themselves, and bestows
not a new grace upon them; as say, God is the cause of the
sins of those that he overlooks and leaves in that state of guilt
wherein he found them. God did not pass by any without the
consideration of sin; so that this act of God is not repugnant
to his holiness, but conformable to his justice.

Prop. (4.) The holiness of God is not blemished by his
secret will to suffer sin to enter into the world. God never
willed sin by his preceptive will. It was never founded upon
or produced by any word of his, as the creation was. He
never said, Let there be sin under the heaven, as he said, Let
there be water under the heaven. Nor does he will it by in-
fusing any habit of it, or stirring up inclinations to it; no, God
tempts no man, James i. 13. Nor does he will it by his approv-
ing will; it is detestable to him, nor ever can be otherwise; he
cannot approve it either before commission or after.

[1.] The will of God is in some sort concurrent with sin.
He does not properly will it, but he wills not to hinder it, to
which by his omnipotence he could put a bar. If he did posi-
tively will it, it might be wrought by himself, and so could not
be evil. If he did in no sort will it, it would not be committed
by his creature. Sin entered into the world, either God will-
ing the permission of it, or not willing the permission of it.
The latter cannot be said; for then the creature is more power-

1 Amyrald. Dcfens. cle Calv. p. 145.
Vol. II.— 23

174 ON T[IE HOLINESS OF GOD.

ful than God, and can do that which God will not permit. God
can, if he be pleased, banish all sin in a moment out of the
Avorld. He could have prevented the revolt of angels, and the
fall of man; they did not sin whether he would or no; He
might by his grace have stepped in the first moment, and made
a special impression upon them of the happiness they already
possessed, and the misery they would incur by any wicked
attempt. He could as well have prevented the sin of the fallen
angels, and confirmed them in grace, as of those that continued
in their happy state. He might have appeared to man, in-
formed him of the issue of his design, and made secret impres-
sions upon his heart, since he was acquainted with every ave-
nue to his will. God could have kept all sin out of the world,
as well as all creatures from breathing in it ; he was as well
able to bar sin for ever out of the world, as to let creatures lie
in the womb of nothing, wherein they were first wrapped. To
say God does will sin as he does other things, is to deny his
holiness; to say it entered without any thing of his will, is to
deny his omnipotence. If he did necessitate Adam to fall,
what shall we think of his purity? If Adam did fall without
any concern of God's will in it, what shall we say of his sove-
reignty? The one taints his holiness, and the other curtails his
power. If it came without any thing of his will in it, and he
did not foresee it, where is his omniscience? If it entered whe-
ther he would or no, where is his omnipotence ? " Who hath
resisted his will?" Rom. ix. 19. There cannot be a lustful act
in Abimelech, if God will withhold his power; "I withheld
thee," Gen. xx. 6 ; nor a cursing word in Balaam's mouth, un-
less God give power to speak it ; " Have I now any power at
all to say any thing? the word that God putteth in my mouth,
that shall I speak," Numb. xxii. 38. As no action could be
sinful if God had not forbidden it ; so no sin could be commit-
ted, if God did not will to give way to it.

[2.] God does not will sin directly, and by an efficacious
will. He does not directly will it, because he has prohibited
it by his law, which is a discovery of his will; so that if he
should directly will sin, and directly prohibit it, he would will
good and evil in the same manner, and there would be contra-
dictions in God's will. To will sin absolutely, is to work it:
God has done whatsoever he pleased, Psal. cxv. 3. God can-
not absolutely will it, because he cannot work it. God wills
good by a positive decree, because he has decreed to effect it. '
He wills evil by a private decree, because he has decreed not
to give that grace which would certainly prevent it. God does
not will sin simply, for that were to approve it, but he wills it
in order to that good his wisdom will bring forth from it.2 He

1 Rispulis. 2 Bradward. lib. i. cap. 34. Cod wills it secumdum quid.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. I75

wills not sin for itself, but for the event. , To will sin as sin, or
as purely evil, is not in the capacity of a creature, neither of
man nor devil. The will of a rational creature cannot will any
thing but under the appearance of good, of some good in the
sin itself, or some good in the issue of it. Much more is this
far from God, who being infinitely good, cannot will evil as
evil;1 and being infinitely knowing, cannot will that for good
which is evil. Infinite wisdom can be under no error or mis-
take: to will sin as sin, would be an unanswerable blemish on
God; but to will to suffer it in order to good, is the glory of his
wisdom. It could never have peeped up its head, unless there
had been some decree of God concerning it. And there had
been no decree of God concerning it, had he not intended to
bring good and glory out of it. If God did directly will the dis-
covery of his grace and mercy to the world, he did in some
sort will sin, as that without which there could not have been
any appearance of mercy in the world: for an innocent crea-
ture is not the object of mercy, but a miserable creature; and
no rational creature but must be sinful before it be miserable.
[3.] God wills the permission of sin. He does not positive-
ly will sin, but he positively wills to permit it. And though he
does not approve of sin, yet he approves of that act of his Avill
whereby he permits it. For since that sin could not enter into
the world without some concern of God's will about it, that act
of his will that gave way to it could not be displeasing to him:
God could never be displeased with his own act : " He is not a
man, that he should repent," 1 Sam. xv. 29. What God can-
not repent of, he cannot but approve of; it is contrary to the
blessedness of God to disapprove of, and be displeased with,
any act of his own will. If he hated any act of his own will,
he would hate himself, he would be under a torture: every
one that hates his own acts, is under some disturbance and tor-
ment for them. That which is permitted by him, is in itself,
and in regard of the evil of it, hateful to him. But as the pros-
pect of that good which he aims at in the permission of it is
pleasing to him; so that act of his will whereby he permits it,
is ushered in by an approving act of his understanding. Either
God approved of the permission, or not: if he did not approve
his own act of permission, he could not have decreed an act of
permission. It is inconceivable that God should decree such
an act which he detested, and positively will that which he
hated. Though God hated sin, as being against his holiness,
yet he did not hate the permission of sin, as being subservient
by the immensity of his wisdom, to his own glory. He could
never be displeased with that which was the result of his eter-
nal counsel, as this decree of permitting sin was, as well as any

1 Aquin. cont. Gent. 1. 1. c. 95.

A

176 0N THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

other decree resolved upon in his own breast. For as God
acts nothing in time, but what he decreed from eternity, so he
permits nothing in time, but what he decreed from eternity to
permit. To speak properly, therefore, God does not will sin,
but he wills the permission of it, and this will to permit is ac-
tive and positive in God.

[4.] This act of permission is not a mere and naked permis-
sion, but such a one as is attended with a certainty of the event.
The decrees of God to ma'ke use of the sin of man for the glory
of his grace in the mission and passion of his Son, hung upon
this entrance of sin. Would it consist with the wisdom of God
to decree such great and stupendous things, the event whereof
should depend upon an uncertain foundation which he might
be mistaken in? God would have sat in council from eternity
to no purpose, if he had only permitted those things to be done,
without any knowledge of the event of this permission : God
would not have made such provision for redemption to no pur-
pose, or an uncertain purpose, which would have been, if man
had not fallen; or if it had been an uncertainty with God
whether he would fall or not. Though the will of God about
sin was permissive, yet the will of God about that glory he
would promote by the defect of the creature was positive; and
therefore he would not suffer so many positive acts of his will
to hang upon an uncertain event; and therefore he did wisely
and righteously order all things to the accomplishment of his
great and gracious purposes.

[5.] This act of permission does not taint the holiness of God.
That there is such an act as permission, is clear in Scripture,
Acts xiv. 16. " Who in times past suffered all nations to walk
in their own ways." But that it does not blemish the holiness
of God will appear,

From the nature of this permission.

It is not a moral permission, a giving liberty of toleration
by any law to commit sin with impunity; when what one law
did forbid, another law does leave indifferent to be done or
not, as a man sees good in himself. As when there is a law
made among men, that no man shall go out of such a city or
country without license, to go out without license is a crime
by the law; but when that law is repealed by another, that
gives liberty for men to go and come at their pleasure, it does
not make their going or coming necessary, but leaves those
which were before bound, to do as they see good in themselves.
Such a permission makes a fact lawful, though not necessary;
a man is not obliged to do it, but he is left to his own discretion to
do as he pleases, without being chargeable with a crime for doing
it. Such a permission there was granted by God to Adam of eat-
ing of the fruits of the gardfn, to choose any of them for food, ex-

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. \ 77

cept the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It was a precept to
him, not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and
evil; but the other was a permission, whereby it was lawful for
him to feed upon any other that was most agreeable to his appe-
tite. But there is not such a permission in the case of sin;
this had been an indulgence of it, which had freed man from
any crime, and consequently from punishment; because by
such a permission by law, he would have had authority to sin,
if he pleased. God did not remove the law, which he had be-
fore placed as a bar against evil, nor ceased that moral impedi-
ment of his threatening. Such a permission as this, to make
sin lawful or indifferent, had been a blot upon God's holiness.

But this permission of God in the case of sin, is no more than
the not hindering a sinful action, which he could have pre-
vented. It is not so much an action of God, as a suspension
of his influence, which might have hindered an evil act, and a
forbearing to restrain the faculties of man from sin; it is pro-
perly the not exerting that efficacy, which might change the
counsels that are taken, and prevent the action intended. As
when one man sees another ready to fall, and can preserve him
from falling by reaching out his hand; he permits him to fall,
that is, he hinders him not from falling. So God describes his
act about Abimelech; "I withheld thee from sinning against
me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her," Gen. xx. 6. If
Abimelech had sinned, he had sinned by God's permission ;
that is, by God's not hindering or not restraining him, by
making any impressions upon him. So that permission is only
a withholding that help and grace, which (if bestowed) would
have been an effectual remedy to prevent a crime: and it is
rather a suspension or cessation, than properly a permission;
and sin may be said to be committed not without God's per-
mission, rather than by his permission.

Thus in the fall of man, God did not hold the reins strict
upon Satan to restrain him from laying the bait, nor restrain
Adam from swallowing the bait: he kept to himself that effica-
cious grace, which he might have darted out upon man to pre-
vent his fall. God left Satan to his malice of tempting, and
Adam to his liberty of resisting, and his own strength, to use
that sufficient grace he had furnished him with, whereby he
might have resisted and overcome the temptation. As he did
not drive man to it, so he did not secretly restrain him from it.
So in the Jews crucifying our Saviour; God did not imprint
upon their minds by his Spirit, a consideration of the greatness
of the crime, and the horror of his justice due to it; and being
without those impediments, they ran furiously of their own
accord to the commission of that evil. As when a man lets a
wolf or dog out upon his prey, he takes off the chain which

178 0N THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

held them, and they presently act according to their natures.'
In the fall of angels and men, God's act was a leaving them
to their own strength: in sins after the fall, it is God's giving
them up to their own corruption. The first is a pure suspen-
sion of grace; the other has the nature of a punishment ; " So
I gave them up unto their own hearts' lusts," Psal. lxxxi. 12.
The first object of this permissive will of God was, to leave
angels and men to their own liberty, and the use of their free-
will, which was natural to them,2 not adding that supernatural
grace which was necessary, not that they should not at all sin,
but that they should infallibly not sin. They had a strength
sufficient to avoid sin, but not sufficient infallibly to avoid sin;
a grace sufficient to preserve them, but not sufficient to confirm
them.

Now this permission is not the cause of sin, nor does blemish
the holiness of God. It does not intrench upon the freedom of
men, but supposes it, establishes it, and leaves man to it. God
acted nothing, but only ceased to act; and therefore could not
be the efficient cause of man's sin. As God is not the author
of good, but by willing and effecting it; so he is not the author
of evil but by willing and effecting it: but he does not posi-
tively will evil, nor effect it by any efficacy of his own. Per-
mission is no action, nor the cause of that action which is
permitted; but the will of that person who is permitted to do
such an action, is the cause.3 God can no more be said to be
the cause of sin, by suffering a creature to act as it will, than
he can be said to be the cause of the not being of any creature,
by denying it being, and letting it remain nothing. It is not
from God that it is nothing, it is nothing in itself. Though
God be said to be the cause of creation, yet he is never by any
said to be the cause of that nothing that was before creation.
This permission of God is not the cause of sin, but the cause of
not hindering sin. Man and angels had a physical power of
sinning from God, as they were created with free-will, and
supported in their natural strength; but the moral power to sin
was not from God: he counselled them not to it, laid no obliga-
tion upon them to use their natural power for such an end.
He only left them to their freedom, and did not hinder them in
their acting what he was resolved to permit.

The holiness of God is not tainted by this, because he was
under no obligation to hinder their commission of sin.
Ceasing to act, whereby to prevent a crime or mischief, brings
not a person permitting it under guilt, unless where he is under
an obligation to prevent it; but God, in regard of his absolute
dominion, cannot be charged with any such obligation. One
man that does not hinder the murder of another, when it is in

» Lawson, p. 64, 2 Suarcz, Vol. 4. p. 414. 3 Suarcz, de Legib. p. 43.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. J 79

his power, is guilty of the murder in part; but it is to be con-
sidered, that he is under a tie by nature, as being of the same
kind, and being the other's brother by a communion of blood;
also under an obligation of the law of charity, enacted by the
common Sovereign of the world: but what tie was there upon
God, since the infinite transcendency of his nature, and his
sovereign dominion, frees him from any such obligation ? If
he takes away, who shall say, What dost thou? Job ix. 12.
God might have prevented the fall of men and angels, he
might have confirmed them all in a state of perpetual inno-
cency ; but where is the obligation? He had made the creature
a debtor to himself, but he owed nothing to the creature. Be-
fore God can be charged with any guilt in this case, it must be
proved, not only that he could, but that he was bound to hinder
it. No person can be justly charged with another's fault,
merely for not preventing it, unless he be bound to prevent it;
else not only the first sin of angels and men would be imputed
to God, as the author, but all the sins of men. He could not
be obliged by any law, because he had no superior to impose
any law upon him; and it will be hard to prove, that he was
obliged from his own nature to prevent the entrance of sin,
which he would use as an occasion to declare his own holiness
so transcendent a perfection of his nature, more than ever it
could have been manifested by a total exclusion of it, namely,
in the death of Christ. He is no more bound in his own nature,
to preserve by supernatural grace his creature from falling,
after he had framed him with a sufficient strength to stand;
than he was obliged in his own nature to bring his creature
into being, when it was nothing. He is not bound to create a
rational creature, much less bound to create him with super-
natural gifts ; though since God would make a rational crea-
ture, he could not but make him with a natural uprightness
and rectitude.

God did as much for angels and men, as became a wise
Governor. He had published his law, backed it with severe
penalties, and the creature wanted not a natural strength to
observe and obey it. Had not man a power to obey all the
precepts of the law, as well as one? How was God bound to
give him more grace, since what he had already was enough
to shield him, and keep up his resistance against all the power
of hell? It had been enough to have pointed his will against
the temptation, and he had kept off the force of it. Was there
any promise passed to Adam of any further grace, which he
could plead as a tie upon God? No such voluntary limit upon
God's supreme dominion appears upon record. Was any thing
due to man, which he had not? any thing promised him, which

IgO ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

was not performed? What action of debt, then, can the crea-
ture bring against God? Indeed, when man began to neglect
the light of his own reason, and became inconsiderate of the
precept, God might have enlightened his understanding by a
special flash, a supernatural beam, and imprinted upon him a
particular consideration of the necessity of his obedience, the
misery he was approaching to by his sin, the folly of any such
apprehension of an equality in knowledge; he might have
convinced him of the falsity of the serpent's arguments, and
uncased to him the venom that lay under those baits; but how
does it appear that God was bound to those additional acts,
when he had already lighted up in him a spirit, which was the
candle of the Lord, Prov. xx. 27, whereby he was able to dis-
cern all, if he had attended to it. It was enough that God did
not necessitate man to sin, did not counsel him to it; that he
had given him sufficient warning in the threatening, and suffi-
cient strength in his faculties, to fortify him against temptation.
He gave him what was due to him as a creature of his own
framing; he withdrew no help from him that was due to him
as a creature, and what was not due he was not bound to im-
part. Man did not beg preserving grace of God, and God was
not bound to offer it, when he was not petitioned for it espe-
cially; yet if he had begged it, God having before furnished
him sufficiently, might, by the right of his sovereign dominion,
have denied it without any impeachment of his holiness and
righteousness. Though he would not, in such a case, have
dealt so bountifully with his creature as he might have done;
yet he could not have been impleaded, as dealing unrighteously
with his creature. The single word that God had already
uttered, when he gave him his precept, was enough to oppose
against all the devil's wiles, which tended to invalidate that
word: the understanding of man could not imagine that the
word of God was vainly spoken; and the very suggestion of
the devil, as if the Creator should envy his creature, would have
appeared ridiculous, if he had attended to the voice of his own
reason. God had done enough for him, and was obliged to do
no more, and dealt not unrighteously in leaving him to act
according to the principles of his nature.

To conclude, if God's permission of sin were enough to
charge it upon God, or if God had been obliged to give Adam
supernatural grace; Adam, that had so capacious a brain, could
not be without that plea in his mouth, Lord, thou mightest
have prevented it; the commission of it by me could not have
been without thy permission of it; or, Thou hast been wanting
to me, as the Author of my nature. No such plea is brought
by Adam into the court, when God tried and cast him; no

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. | § j

such pleas can have any strength in them. Adam had reason
enough to know, that there was sufficient reason to overrule
such a plea.

Since the permission of sin casts no blot upon the holiness of
God, as I think has been cleared, we may under this head con-
sider two things more.

That God's permission of sin is not so much as his restraint
or limitation of it. Since the entrance of the first sin into the
world by Adam, God is more a hinderer than a permitter of it.
If he has permitted that which he could have prevented, he
prevents a world more, that he might, if he pleased, permit: the
hedges about sin are larger than the outlets; they are but a few
streams that glide about the world, in comparison of that mighty
torrent he dams up both in men and devils. He that under-
stands what a lake of Sodom is in every man's nature, since
the universal infection of human nature, as the apostle describes
it, Rom. iii. 9, 10, &c, must acknowledge, that if God should
cast the reins upon the necks of sinful men, they would run into
thousands of abominable crimes more than they do: the impres-
sion of all national laws would be razed out, the world would
be a public stew, and a more bloody slaughter-house ; human
society would sink into a chaos; no star-light of commendable
morality would be seen in it; the world would be no longer an
earth, but a hell, and have lain deeper in wickedness than it
does. If God did not limit sin as he does the sea, and put bars
to the waves of the heart, as well as those of the waters, and
say of them, Hitherto you shall go, and no further; man has
such a furious ocean in him as would overflow the banks; and
where it makes a breach in one place, it would in a thousand,
if God should suffer it to act according to its impetuous current.

As the devil has lust enough to destroy all mankind, if God
did not bridle him; to deal with every man as he did with lob,
ruin their comforts and deform their bodies with scabs; infect
religion with a thousand more errors; fling disorders into com-
monwealths, and make them as a fiery furnace, full of nothing
but flame; — if he were not chained by that powerful arm, that
might let him loose to fulfil his malicious fury; what rapines,
murders, thefts, would be committed, if he did not stint him!
Abimelech would not only lust after Sarah, but deflour her;
Laban not only pursue Jacob, but rifle him; Saul not only hate
David, but murder him; David not only threaten Nabal, but
root him up and his family, did not God girdle in the wrath of
man:1 a greater remainder of wrath is pent in, than flames out,
which yet swells for an outlet. God may be concluded more
holy in preventing men's sins, than the author of sin in permit-
ting some; since were it not for his restraints by the pull-back

1 Psal. lxxvi. 10, as the word restrain signifies.

Vol. II.— 24

182

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

of conscience, and infused motions and outward impediments,
the world would swarm more with this cursed brood.

His permission of sin is in order to his own glory, and a
greater good. It is no reflection upon the Divine goodness to
leave man to his own conduct, whereby such a deformity as sin
sets foot in the world; since he makes his wisdom illustrious in
bringing good out of evil, and a good greater than that evil he
suffered to spring up.1 God did not permit sin, as sin, or per-
mit it barely for itself. As sin is not lovely in its own nature;
so neither is the permission of sin intrinsically good or amiable
for itself, but for those ends aimed at in the permission of it.
God permitted sin, but approved not of the object of that per-
mission, sin; because that, considered in its own nature, is
solely evil: nor can we think, that God could approve of the
act of permission, considered only in itself as an act; but as it
respected that event which his wisdom would order by it. We
cannot suppose that God should permit sin; but for some great
and glorious end; for it is the manifestation of his own glorious
perfections he intends in all the acts of his will. " The Lord
has made all things for himself," Prov. xvi. 4; has wrought all
things; which is not only his act of creation, but ordination:
"for himself," that is, for the discovery of the excellency of his
nature, and the communication of himself to his creature. Sin
indeed in its own nature has no tendency to a good end, the
womb of it teems with nothing but monsters; it is a spurning at
God's sovereignty, and a slight of his goodness; it both deforms
and torments the person that acts it; it is black and abominable,
and has not a mite of goodness in the nature of it. If it ends
in any good, it is only from that infinite transcendency of skill,
that can bring good out of evil, as well as light out of darkness.
Therefore God did not permit it as sin, but as it was an occa-
sion for the manifestation of his own glory. Though the good-
ness of God would have appeared in the preservation of the
world, as well as it did in the creation of it, yet his mercy
could not have appeared without the entrance of sin, because
the object of mercy is a miserable creature; but man could not
be miserable as long as he remained innocent. The reign of
sin opened a door for the reign and triumph of grace ; " As sin
hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life," Rom. v. 21: without it the
bowels of mercy had never sounded, and the ravishing music
of Divine grace could never have been heard by the creature.
Mercy, which renders God so amiable, could never else have
beamed out to the world. Angels and men upon this occasion
beheld the stirrings of Divine grace, and the tenderness of Di-
vine nature, and the glory of the Divine Persons in their seve-

1 Majus boniini, saith Bradward.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. |§3

ral functions about the redemption of man, which had else
been a spring shut up and a fountain sealed; the song of glory-
to God, and good will to men, in a way of redemption, had
never been sung by them. It appears in his dealings with
Adam, that he permitted his fell, not only to show his justice
in punishing, but principally his mercy in rescuing; since he
proclaims to him first the promise of a Redeemer, to bruise the
serpent's head, before he settled the punishment he should
smart under in the world, Gen. iii. 15 — 17. And what fairer
prospect could the creature have of the holiness of God, and
his hatred of sin, than in the edge of that sword of justice,
which punished it in the sinner, but glittered more in the pun-
ishment of a Surety so nearly allied to him? Had not man
been criminal, he could not have been punishable, nor any been
punishable for him; and the pulse of Divine holiness could not
have beaten so quick, and been so visible, without an exercise
of his vindictive justice. He left man's mutable nature to
fall under unrighteousness, that thereby he might commend the
righteousness of his own nature, Rom. iii. 5. Adam's sin in
its nature tended to the ruin of the world, and God takes an
occasion from it for the glory of his grace in the redemption of
the world: he brings forth thereby a new scene of wonders
from heaven, and a surprising knowledge on earth; as the sun
breaks out more strongly after a night of darkness and tem-
pest. As God in creation framed a chaos by his power, to
manifest his wisdom in bringing order out of disorder, light out
of darkness, beauty out of confusion and deformity; when he
was able by a word to have made all creatures stand up in
their beauty, without the precedency of a chaos, so God per-
mitted a moral chaos, to manifest a greater wisdom in the re-
pairing a broken image, and restoring a deplorable creature,
and bringing out those perfections of his nature which had else
been wrapped up in a perpetual silence in his own bosom.1 It
was therefore very congruous to the holiness of God, to permit
that which he could make subservient for his own glory, and
particularly for the manifestation of this attribute of holiness,
which seems to be in opposition to such a permission.

Prop. (5.) The holiness of God is not blemished by his con-
currence with the creature in the material part of a sinful act.
Some, to free God from having any hand in sin, deny his con-
currence to the actions of the creature; because, if he concurs
to a sinful action, he concurs to the sin also: not understanding
how there can be a distinction between the act, and the sinful-
ness or viciousness of it; and how God can concur to a natural
action, without being stained by that moral evil which cleaves
to it.

1 But of the wisdom of God in the permitting &m in order to redemption, 1
have handled in the attribute of wisdom.

184 0N THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

For the understanding of this, observe,

[1.] There is a concurrence of God to all the acts of the
creature; "In him we live, and move, and have our being,"
Acts xvii. 2S. We depend upon God in our acting, as well as
in our being. There is as much an efficacy of God in our mo-
tion as in our production; as none have life without his power
in producing it, so none have any operation without his provi-
dence concurring with it. " In him, or by him," that is, by his
virtue preserving and governing our motions, as well by his
power bringing us into being. Hence man is compared to an
axe, Isa. x. 15; an instrument that has no action without the
co-operation of a superior agent handling it: and the actions
of the second causes are ascribed to God; the grass, that is the
product of the sun, rain, and earth, he is said to make to grow
upon the mountains, Psal. cxlvii. 8; and the skin and flesh,
which is by natural generation, he is said to clothe us with,
Job x. 11; in regard of his co-working with second causes,
according to their natures. As nothing can exist, so nothing
can operate without him; let his concurrence be removed, and
the being and action of the creature cease: remove the sun
from the horizon, or a candle from a room, and the light which
flowed from either of them ceases. Without God's preserving
and concurring power, the course of nature would sink, and
the creation be in vain. All created things depend upon God
as agents, as well as beings, and are subordinate to him in a
way of action, as well as in a way of existing.1 If God sus-
pend his influence from their action, they would cease to act,
(as the fire did from burning the three children,) as well as if
God suspend his influence from their being, they would cease
to be. God supports the nature whereby actions are wrought,
the mind whereby actions are consulted, and the will whereby
actions are determined, and the motive power whereby actions
are produced. The mind could not contrive, nor the hand act
a wickedness, if God did not support the power of the one in
designing, and the strength of the other in executing a wicked
intention. Every faculty in its being, and every faculty in its
motion, has a dependence upon the influence of God. To make
the creature independent upon God in any thing which speaks
perfection, as action considered as action is, is to make a crea-
ture a sovereign being. Indeed we cannot imagine the con-
currence of God to the good actions of men since the fall,
without granting a concurrence of God to evil actions, because
there is no action so purely good, but has a mixture of evil it,
though it takes its denomination of good from the better part:
there is no man that doth good and sinneth not, Eccl. vii. 20.

[2.] Though the natural virtue of doing a sinful action be

1 Suarcz, Mctaph. part. 1. p. 552.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. JQ5

from God, and supported by him, yet this doth not blemish the
holiness of God ; while God concurs with them in the act, he
instils no evil into men.

No act in regard of the substance of it is evil. Most of the
actions of our faculties, as they are actions, might have been in
the state of innocency. Eating is an act Adam would have
used, if he had stood firm, but not eating to excess. Worship
was an act that should have been performed to God in inno-
cence, but not hypocritically. Every action is good by a phy-
sical goodness, as it is an act of the mind or hand, which have
a natural goodness by creation ; but every action is not moral-
ly good: the physical goodness of the action depends on God,
the moral evil on the creature.1 There is no action, as a cor-
poreal action, is prohibited by the law of God; but as it springs
from an evil disposition, and is tainted by a venomous temper
of mind. There is no action so bad, as attended with such ob-
jects and circumstances, but if the objects and circumstances
were changed, might be a brave and commendable action: so
that the moral goodness or badness of an act is not to be es-
teemed from the substance of the act, which hath always a
physical goodness; but from the objects, circumstances, and
constitution of the mind in the doing of it. Worship is an act
good in itself, but the worship of an image is bad in regard of
the object. Were that act of worship directed to God, that is
paid to a statue, and offered up to him with a sincere frame of
mind, it would be morally good. The act in regard of the sub-
stance is the same in both, and considered as separated from
the object to which the worship is directed, hath the same real
goodness in regard of its substance; but when you consider
this action in relation to the different objects, the one hath a
moral goodness, and the other a moral evil. So in speaking;
speaking being a motion of the tongue in the forming of words,
is an excellency belonging to a reasonable creature; an endow-
ment bestowed, continued, and supported by God. Now if the
same tongue forms words whereby it curses God this minute,
and forms words whereby it blesses and praises God the next
minute; the faculty of speaking is the same, the motion of the
tongue is the same in pronouncing the name of God either in a
way of cursing or blessing, it is the same mouth that blesses
and curses, James iii. 9, 10; and the motion of it is naturally
good in regard of the substance of the act in both; it is the use
of an excellent power God has given, and which God preserves
in the use of it. But the estimation of the moral goodness or
evil is not from the act itself, but from the disposition of the
mind. Once more, killing, as an act, is good, nor is it unlaw-
ful as an act; for if so, God would never have commanded his

■ Amyrald. de Libero Arbit. p. 98, 99.

lg(j ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

people Israel to wage any war, and justice could not be done
upon malefactors by the magistrate; a man were bound to
sacrifice his life to the fury of an invader, rather than secure it
by despatching that of an enemy. But killing an innocent, or
killing without authority, or out of revenge, is bad. It is not
the material part of the act, but the object, manner, and circum-
stance, that make it good or evil. It is no blemish to God's
holiness to concur to the substance of an action without having
any hand in the immorality of it, because whatsoever is real in
the substance of the action, might be done without evil. It is
not evil as it is an act, as it is the motion of the tongue or hand,
for then every motion of the tongue or hand would be evil.

Hence it follows, that an act as an act is one thing, and the
viciousness another. The action is the efficacy of the faculty,
extending itself to some outward object; but the sinfulness of
an act consists in a privation of that comeliness and righteous-
ness, which ought to be in an action; in a want of conformity
of the act with the law of God, either written in nature, or re-
vealed in the word.1 Now the sinfulness of an action is not
the act itself, but is considered in it as it is related to the law,
and is a deviation from it; and so it is something cleaving to
the action, and therefore to be distinguished from the act itself,
which is the subject of the sinfulness. When we say such an
action is sinful, the action is the subject, and the sinfulness of
the action is that which adheres to it. The action is not the
sinfulness, nor the sinfulness the action; they are distinguished
as the member and a disease in the member, the arm and the
palsy in it. The arm is not the palsy, nor is the palsy the arm;
but the palsy is a disease that cleaves to the arm: so sinfulness
is a deformity that cleaves to an action.

The evil of an action is not the effect of an action, nor attends
it as it is an action, but as it is an action so circumstantiated,
and conversant about this or that object; for the same action
done by two several persons, may be good in one, and bad in
the other. As when two judges are in joint commission for the
trial of a malefactor, both, upon the appearance of his guilt,
condemn him. This action in both, considered as an action,
is good; for it is an adjudging a man to death, whose crime
deserves such a punishment. But this same act, which is but
one joint act of both, may be morally good in one judge, and
morally evil in the other: morally good in him that condemns
him out of an unbiassed consideration of the demerit of his fact,
obedience to the law, and conscience of the duty of his place;
and morally evil in the other, who has no respect to those con-
siderations, but joins in the act of condemnation, principally
moved by some private animosity against the prisoner, and

i Ainyrald. p 321, 322.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. j_Q«y

desire of revenge for some injury he has really received, or
imagines that he has received from him. The act in itself is
the same materially in both; but in one it is an act of justice,
and in the other an act of murder, as it respects the principles
and motives of it in the two judges; take away the respect of
private revenge, and the action in the ill judge had been as
laudable as the action of the other. The substance of an act,
and the sinfulness of an act, are separable and distinguishable;
and God may concur with the substance of an act, without
concurring with the sinfulness of the act: as the good judge,
that condemned the prisoner out of conscience, concurred with
the evil judge, who condemned the prisoner out of private
revenge; not in the principle and motive of condemnation, but
in the material part of condemnation. So God assists in that
action of a man wherein sin is placed, but not in that which is
the formal reason of sin, which is a privation of some perfection
the action ought morally to have.

It will appear further in this, that hence it follows that the
action and the viciousness of the action may have two distinct
causes. That may be a cause of the one, that is not the cause
of the other, and has no hand in the producing of it. God
concurs to the act of the mind as it counsels, and to the external
action upon that counsel, as he preserves the faculty, and gives
strength to the mind to consult, and the other parts to execute;
yet he is not in the least tainted with the viciousness of the
action. Though the action be from God as a concurrent cause,
yet the ill quality of the action is solely from the creature with
whom God concurs. The sun and the earth concur to the
production of all the plants, that are formed in the womb of the
one, and brought forth by the other: the sun distributes heat,
and the earth communicates sap; it is the same heat dispersed
by the one, and the same juice bestowed by the other: it has
not a sweet juice for one, and a sour juice for another. This
general influx of the sun and earth is not the immediate cause
that one plant is poisonous and another wholesome; but the
sap of the earth is turned by the nature and quality of each
plant. If there were not such an influx of the sun and earth,
no plant could exert that poison which is in its nature; but yet
the sun and earth are not the cause of that poison which is in
the nature of the plant. If God did not concur to the motions
of men, there could be no sinful action, because there could be
no action at all; yet this concurrence is not the cause of that
venom that is in the acticn, which arises from the corrupt na-
ture of the creature, no more than the sun and earth are the
cause of the poison of the plant, which is purely the effect of
its own nature upon that general influx of the sun and earth.
The influence of God pierces through all subjects; but the action

188 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

of man, done by that influence, is vitiated according to the na-
ture of its own corruption. As the sun equally shines through
all the panes in the window; if the glass be bright and clear,
there is a pure splendour; if it be red or green, the splendour
is from the sun, but the discolouring of that light upon the wall
is from the quality of the glass. But to be yet plainer; the soul
is the image of God, and by the acts of the soul we may come
to the knowledge of the acts of God; the soul gives motion to
the body and every member of it, and no member could move
without a concurrent virtue of the soul ; if a member be para-
lytic or gouty, whatsoever motion that gouty member has, is
derived to it from the soul; but the goutiness of the member
was not the act of the soul, but the fruit of ill-humours in the
body; the lameness of the member, and the motion of the mem-
ber, have two distinct causes; the motion is from one cause
and the ill motion from another.1 As the member could not
move irregularly without some ill humour or cause of that dis-
temper, so it could not move at all without the activity of the
soul. So though God concur to the act of understanding, will-
ing and execution, why can he not be as free from the irregu-
larity in all those, as the soul is free from the irregularity of the
motion of the body, while it is the cause of the motion itself?
There are two illustrations generally used in this case, that are
not unfit; the motion of the pen in writing is from the hand
that holds it, but the blurs by the pen are from some fault in the
pen itself: and the music of the instrument is from the hand
that touches it, but the jarring from the faultiness of the strings;
both are the causes of the motion of the pen and strings, but
not the blurs or jarrings.

It is very congruous to the wisdom of God, to move his crea-
tures according to their particular natures; but this motion
makes him not the cause of sin. Had our innocent nature con-
tinued, God had moved us according to that innocent nature;
but when the state was changed for a corrupt one, God must
either forbear all concourse, and so annihilate the world, or
move us according to that nature he finds in us. If he had
overthrown the world upon the entrance of sin, and created
another upon the same terms, sin might have as soon defaced
his second work, as he did the first; and then it would follow,
that God would have been always building and demolishing.
It was not fit for God to cease from acting as a wise Governor
of his creature, because man did cease from his loyalty as a
subject. Is it not more agreeable to God's wisdom as a Gover-
nor, to concur with his creature according to his nature, than
to deny his concurrence upon every evil determination of the
creature? God concurred with Adam's mutable nature in his

' Zanch. torn. 2. lib. 3. rap. 4. qn. 4. p. 226.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. J §9

first act of sin ; he concurred to the act, and left him to his mu-
tability. If Adam had put out his hand to eat of any other
unforbidden fruit, God would have supported his natural
faculty then, and concurred with him in his motion.

When Adam would put out his hand to take the forbidden
fruit, God concurred to that natural action; but left him to the
choice of the object, and to the use of his mutable nature. And
when man became apostate, God concurs with him according
to that condition wherein he found him, and cannot move him
otherwise, unless he should alter that nature man had con-
tracted. God moving the creature as he found him, is no cause
of the ill motion of the creature: as when a wheel is broken the
space of a foot, it cannot but move ill in that part till it be
mended. He that moves it, uses the same motion (as it is his
act) which he would have done had the wheel been sound; the
motion is good in the mover, but bad in the subject; it is not
the fault of him that moves it, but the fault of that wheel that
is moved, whose breaches came by some other cause. A man
does not use to lay aside his watch for some irregularity, as
long as it is capable of motion, but winds it up: why should
God cease from concurring with his creature in its vital opera-
tions and other actions of his will, because there was a flaw
contracted in that nature, that came right and true out of his
hand ? And as he that winds up his disordered watch, is in
the same manner the cause of its motion then, as he was when
it was regular ; yet by that act of his, he is not the cause of the
false motion of it, but that is from the deficiency of some part
of the watch itself; so though God concurs to that action of the
creature, whereby the wickedness of the heart is drawn out ;
yet is not God therefore as unholy as the heart.

God has one end in his concurrence, and man another in his
action. So that there is a righteous, and often a gracious end
in God, when there is a base and unworthy end in man. God
concurs to the substance of the act; man produces the circum-
stance of the act, whereby it is evil. God orders both the ac-
tion wherein he concurs, and the sinfulness over which he pre-
sides, as a Governor, to his own ends. In Joseph's case, man
was sinful, and God merciful; his brethren acted envy, and
God designed mercy, Gen. xlv. 4, 5. They would be rid of
him as an eyesore, and God concurred with their action to
make him their preserver; "Ye thought evil against me, but
God meant it unto good," Gen. 1. 20. God concurred to Judas's
action of betraying our Saviour; he supported his nature while
he contracted with the priests, and supported his members
while he was their guide to apprehend him; God's end was the
manifestation of his choicest love to man, and Judas's end was
the gratification of his own covetousness. The Assyrian did a
Vol. II.— 25

|90 0N THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

divine work against Jerusalem, but not with a divine end, Isa.
x. 5 — 7. lie had a mind to enlarge his empire, enrich his
coders with the spoil, and gain the title of a conqueror; he is
desirous to invade his neighbours, and God employs him to
punish his rebels; but he means not so, nor does his heart think
so; he intended not as God intended. The axe does not think
what the carpenter intends to do with it. But God used the
rapine of an ambitious nature as an instrument of his justice;
as the exposing malefactors to wild beasts was an ancient
punishment, whereby the magistrate intended the execution of
justice, and to that purpose used the natural fierceness of the
beasts to an end different from what those ravaging creatures
aimed at. God concurred with Satan in spoiling Job of his
goods, and scarifying his body; God gave Satan license to do
it, and Job acknowledges it to be God's act, Job. i. 12. 21 : but
their ends were different; God concurred with Satan for the
clearing the integrity of his servant, when Satan aimed at
nothing but the provoking him to curse his Creator. The
physician applies leeches to suck the superfluous blood, but the
leeches suck to glut themselves, without any regard to the in-
tention of the physician and the welfare of the patient. In the
same act where men intend to hurt, God intends to correct; so
that his concurrence is in a holy manner, while men commit
unrighteous actions. A judge commands the executioner to
execute the sentence of death which he has justly pronounced
against a malefactor, and admonishes him to do it out of love
to justice; the executioner has the authority of the judge for
his commission, and the protection of the judge for his security.
The judge stands by to countenance and secure him in the
doing of it; but if the executioner has not the same intention
as the judge, namely, a love to justice in the performance of his
office, but a private hatred to the offender; the judge, though
he commanded the fact of the executioner, yet did not com-
mand this error of his in it; and though he protects him in the
fact, yet he owns not this corrupt disposition in him in the
doing of what was unjoined him, as any act of his own.

To conclude this, since the creature cannot act without God,
cannot lift up a hand or move his tongue, without God's pre-
serving and upholding the faculty and preserving the power of
action, and preserving every member of the body in its actual
motion, and in every circumstance of its motion, we must neces-
sarily suppose God to have such a way of concurrence as does
not intrench upon his holiness. We must not equal the crea-
ture to God, by denying its dependence on him; nor must we
imagine such a concurrence to the sinfulness of an act, as stains
the Divine purity; which is, I think, sufficiently sal ved by distin-
guishing the mailer of the act from the evil adhering to it. For

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 191

since all evil is founded in some good, the evil is distinguishable
from the good, and the deformity of the action from the action
itself; which, as it is a created act, has a dependence on the will
and influence of God: and as it is a sinful act, is the product of
the- will of the creature.

•• 'pr0jh ((J.) The holiness of God is not blemished by propos-
ing objects to a man, which he makes use of to sin. There is
no object proposed to man, but is directed by the providence of
God, which influences all motions in the world; and there is no
object proposed to man, but his active nature may, according
to the goodness or badness of his disposition, make a good or
an ill use of. That two men, one of a charitable, the other of
a hard-hearted disposition, meet with an indigent and necessi-
tous object, is from the providence of God; yet this indigent per-
son is relieved by the one, and neglected by the other. There
could be no action in the world but about some object; there
could be no object offered to us but by Divine providence; the
active nature of man would be in vain, if there were not ob-
jects about which it might be exercised. Nothing could present
itself to man as an object, either to excite his grace or awaken
his corruption, but by the conduct of the Governor of the world.
That David should walk upon the battlements of his palace, and
Bathsheba be in the bath at the same time, was from the Divine
providence which orders all the affairs of the world, 2 Sam. xi.
2; and so some understand Jer. vi. 21. " Thus saith the Lord,
Behold, I will lay stumbling-blocks before this people, and the
fathers, and the sons together shall fall upon them." Since
they have offered sacrifices without those due qualifications in
their hearts, which were necessary to render them acceptable
to me, I will lay in their way such objects, which their cor-
ruption will use ill to their further sin and ruin; so Psal. cv.
25. "He turned their heart to hate his people;" that is, by
the multiplying his people, he gave occasion to the Egyptians
of hating them, instead of caressing them as they had formerly
done.

But God's holiness is not blemished by this; for,
[1.] This proposing or presenting of objects invades not the
liberty of any man. The tree of the knowledge of good and
evil set in the midst of the garden of Eden, had no violent influ-
ence on man to force him to eat of it; his liberty to eat of it, or
not, was reserved entire to himself; no such charge can be
brought against any object whatsoever. Tf a man meet accident-
ally at a table with meat that is grateful to his palate, but hurtful
to the present temper of his body; does the presenting this sort
of food to him strip him of his liberty to decline it, as well as to
feed of it? Can the food have any internal influence upon his
will, and lay the freedom of it asleep, whether he will or no ?

192 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

Is there any charm in that, more than in other sorts of diet?
No; but it is the habit of love which he has to that particular dish,
the curiosity of his fancy, and the strength of his own appetite,
whereby he is brought into a kind of slavery to that particular
meat, and not any thing in the food itself. When the word is
proposed to two persons, it is embraced by the one, rejected by
the other; is it from the word itself, which is the object, that
these two persons perform different acts? The object is the same
to both, but the manner of acting about the object is not the
same: is there any invasion of their liberty by it? Is the one
forced by the word to receive it, and the other forced by the
word to reject it? Two such contrary effects cannot proceed
from one and the same cause: outward things have only an ob-
jective influence, not an inward. If the mere proposal of things
did suspend or strike down the liberty of man,1 no angels in
heaven, no man upon earth, no, not our Saviour himself, could
do any thing freely, but by force. Objects that are ill used are
of God's creation, and though they have allurements in them,
yet they have no compulsive power over the will. The fruit of
the tree of knowledge of good and evil was pleasing to the
sight; it had a quality to allure, there had not else needed a pro-
hibition to bar the eating of it; but it could not have so much
power to allure as the Divine threatening to deter.

[2.] The objects are good in themselves, but the ill use of
them is from man's corruption. Bathsheba was by God's provi-
dence presented to David's sight, but it was David's disposition
moved him to so evil an act. What if God knew that he would
use that object ill? yet he knew he had given him a power to
refrain from any ill use of it. The objects are innocent, but our
corruption poisons them. The same object has been used by
one to holy purposes and holy improvements, that has been
used by another to sinful ends. When a charitable object is
presented to a good man and a cruel man, one relieves him, the
other reviles him: the object was rather an occasion to draw
out the charity of one, as well as the other; but the refusing to
reach out a helping hand, was not from the person in calamity,
but the disposition of the refuser, to whom he was presented.
It is not from the nature of the object that men do good or evil,
but from the disposition of the person; what is good in itself, is
made bad by our corruption: as the same meat which nourishes
and strengthens a sound constitution, cherishes the disease of
another that eats at the same table, not from any unwholesome
quality in the food, but the vicious quality of the humours lodg-
ing in the stomach, which turn the diet into fuel for themselves,
which in its own nature was apt to engender a wholesome
juice. Some are perfected by the same things whereby others

1 Amyral. dc Libero Arbit. p. 224.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. J93

are ruined. Riches are used by some, not only for their own,
but the advantage of others in the world; by others only for
themselves, and scarcely so much as their necessities require.
Is this the fault of the wealth, or the dispositions of the persons,
who are covetous instead of generous? It is a calumny there-
fore upon God to charge him with the sin of man upon this ac-
count: the rain that drops from the clouds upon the plants, is
sweet in itself, but when it moistens the root of any venomous
plant, it is turned into the juice of the plant, and becomes ven-
omous with it. The miracles that our Saviour wrought, were
applauded by some, and envied by the pharisees; the sin arose
not from the nature of the miracles, but the malice of their
spirits; the miracles were fitter in their own nature to have in-
duced them to an adoration of our Saviour, than to excite so
vile a passion against one that had so many marks from heaven
to dignify him, and proclaim him worthy of their respect. The
person of Christ was an object proposed to the Jews; some wor-
ship him, others condemn and crucify him, and according to
their several vices and base ends they use this object: Judas to
content his covetousness, the pharisees to glut their revenge,
Pilate for his ambition, to preserve himself in his government,
and avoid the articles the people might charge him with of
countenancing an enemy to Caesar. God at that time put into
their minds a rational and true proposition which they apply to
ill purposes. ' Caiaphas said, that it was expedient for one man
to die for the people, which he spake not of himself, John xi.
50, 51. God put it into his mind, but he might have applied it
better than he did, and considered, though the maxim was com-
mendable, whether it might justly be applied to Christ, or
whether there was such a necessity that he must die, or the nation
be destroyed by the Romans. The maxim was sound and holy,
decreed by God; but what an ill use did the high priest make
of it to put Christ to death as a seditious person, to save the na-
tion from the Roman fury !

[3.] Since the natural corruption of men will use such objects
ill, may not God, without tainting himself, present such objects
to them in subserviency to his gracious decrees? Whatsoever
God should present to men in that state, they would make an
ill use of; has not God then the sovereign prerogative to pre-
sent what he pleases, and suppress others? to offer that to them
which may serve his holy purpose, and hide other things from
them which are not so conducive to his gracious ends, which
would be as much the occasion of exciting their sin, as the
others which he does bring forth to their view ? The Jews, at
the time of Christ, were of a turbulent and seditious humour,
they expected a Messiah a temporal king, and would readily

1 Amyrald. Ironic, p. 337.

J 94 ON TIIE HOLINESS OF GOD.

have embraced any occasion to have been np in arms to have
delivered themselves from the Roman yoke; to this purpose the
people attempted once to make him king. And probably the
expectation they had that he had such a design to head them,
might be one reason of their hosannas, because without some
such conceit it was not probable they should so soon change
their note, and vote him to the cross in so short a time, after
they had applauded him as if he had been upon a throne; but
their being defeated of strong expectations, usually ended in a
more ardent fury. This turbulent and seditious humour God
directs in another channel, suppresses all occurrences that
might excite them to a rebellion against the Romans, which if
he had given way to, the crucifying Christ, which was God's
design to bring about at that time, had not probably been
effected, and the salvation of mankind been hindered or stood
at a stay for a time. God therefore orders such objects and
occasions, that might direct this seditious humour to another
channel, which would else have run out in other actions, which
had not been conducive to the great design he had then in the
world. Is it not the right of God, and without any blemish to
his holiness, to use those corruptions which he finds sown in
the nature of his creatures by the hand of Satan, and to pro-
pose such objects as may excite the exercise of them for his
own service ? Surely God has as much right to serve himself of
the creature of his own framing, and what natures soever they
are possessed with, and to present objects to that purpose, as a
falconer lias to offer this or that bird to his hawk to exercise
his courage, and excite his ravenousness, without being termed
the author of that ravenousness in the creature. God planted
not those corruptions in the Jews, but finds them in those per-
sons over whom he has an absolute sovereignty in the right of
a Creator, and that of a Judge for their sins: and by the right
of that sovereignty may offer such objects and occasions, which,
though innocent in themselves, he knows they will make use
of to ill purposes, but which by the same decree that he re-
solves to present such occasions to them, he also resolves to
make use of them for his own glory. It is not conceivable by
us what way that death of Christ, which was necessary for the
satisfaction of Divine justice, could be brought about without
ordering the evil of some men's hearts by special occasions to
effect his purpose.1 We cannot suppose that Christ can be
guilty of any crime that deserved death by the Jewish law ;
had he been so criminal, he could not have been a redeemer:
a perfect innocence was necessary to the design of his coining.
Had God himself put him to that death, without using instru-
ments of wickedness in it, by some remarkable hand from hea-

1 This I have spoken of before, but it is necessary now.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 195

ven, the innocence of his nature had been for ever eclipsed,
and the voluntariness of his sacrifice had been obscured. The
strangeness of such a judgment would have made his innocence
incredible ; he could not reasonably have been proposed as an
object of faith. What, to believe in one that was struck dead
by a hand from heaven! The propagation of the doctrine of
redemption had wanted a foundation; and though God might
have raised him again, the certainty of his death had been as
questionable as his innocence in dying, had he not been raised.
But God orders every thing so as to answer his own most wise
and holy ends, and maintain his truth, and the fulfilling the
predictions of the minutest concerns about them, and all this
by presenting occasions innocent in themselves; which the cor-
ruptions of the Jews took hold of, and whereby God, unknown
to them, brought about his own decrees. And may not this be
conceived without any taint upon God's holiness; for when
there are seeds of all sin in man's nature, why may not God
hinder the sprouting up of this or that kind of seed, and leave
liberty to the growth of the other, and shut up other ways of
sinning, and restrain men from them, and let them loose to that
temptation which he intends to serve himself of, hiding from
them those objects which were not so serviceable to his pur-
pose, wherein they would have sinned, and offering others,
which he knew their corruption would use ill, and were ser-
viceable to his ends; since the depravation of their natures
would necessarily hurry them to evil without restraining grace,
as a scale will necessarily rise up when the weight in it, which
kept it down, is taken away?

Prop. (7.) The holiness of God is not blemished by with-
drawing his grace from a sinful creature, whereby he falls into
more sin. That God withdraws his grace from men, and gives
them up sometimes to the fury of their lusts, is as clear in
Scripture as any thing; " Yet the Lord hath not given you an
heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear," &c. Deut.
xxix. 4. Judas was delivered to Satan after the sop, and put
into his power for despising former admonitions. He often
leaves the reins to the devil, that he may use what efficacy he
can in those that have offended the majesty of God; he with-
holds further influences of grace, or withdraws what before he
had granted them. Thus he withheld that grace from the sons
of Eli, that might have made their father's pious admonitions
effectual to them; " They hearkened not unto the voice of their
father, because the Lord would slay them," 1 Sam. ii. 25. He
gave grace to Eli to reprove them, and withheld that grace
from them, which might have enabled them against their natu-
ral corruption and obstinacy to receive that reproof.

But the holiness of God is not blemished by this,

196 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

[1.] Because the act of God in this is only negative.1 Thus
God is said to harden men: not by positive hardening, or
working any thing in the creature, but by not working, not
softening, leaving a man to the hardness of his own heart,
whereby it is unavoidable by the depravation of man's nature,
and the fury of his passions, but that he should be further har-
dened, and increase unto more ungodliness, as the expression
is, 2 Tim. ii. 16. As a man is said to give another his life,
when he does not take it away when it lay at his mercy ; so
God is said to harden a man, when he does not mollify him
when it was in his power, and inwardly quicken him with that
grace, whereby he might infallibly avoid any further provoking
of him. God is said to harden men, when he removes not
from them the incentives to sin, curbs not those principles
which are ready to comply with those incentives, withdraws
the common assistances of his grace, concurs not with counsels
and admonitions to make them effectual; flashes not in the
convincing light which he darted upon them before. If hard-
ness follows upon God's withholding his softening grace, it is
not by any positive act of God, but from the natural hardness
of man. If you put fire near to wax or rosin, both will melt,
but when that fire is removed, they return to their natural
quality of hardness and brittleness; the positive act of the fire
is to melt and soften, and the softness of the rosin is to be as-
cribed to that, but the hardness is from the rosin itself, wherein
the fire has no influence, but only a negative act by a removal
of it. So when God hardens a man, he only leaves him to
that stony heart which he derived from Adam, and brought
with him into the world. All men's understandings being
blinded, and their wills perverted in Adam, God's withdraw-
ing his grace is but a leaving them to their natural pravity,
which is the cause of their further sinning, and not God's re-
moval of that special light he before afforded them, or restraint
he held over them. As when God withdraws his preserving
power from the creature, he is not the efficient, but deficient
cause of the creature's destruction; so in this case, God only
ceases to bind and dam up that sin which else would break
out.

[2.] The whole positive cause of this hardness is from man's
corruption. God infuses not any sin into his creatures, but for-
bears to infuse his grace and restrain their lusts, which upon
the removal of his grace work impetuously: God only gives
them up to that which he knows will work strongly in their
hearts. And therefore the apostle wipes off from God any
positive act in that uncleanness the heathens were given up to,
— (" Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through

1 Tcstard. dc Nalur. et Grat. Thcs. 150, 151. Amy. on divers texts, p. 311.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. J 97

the lusts of their own hearts," Rom. i. 24. And verse 26,
" God gave them up unto vile affections," but they were their
own affections, none of God's inspiring,) — by adding, "through
the lusts of their own hearts:" God's giving them up was the
logical cause, or a cause by way of argument; their own lusts
were the true and natural cause; their own they were, before
they were given up to them; and belonging to none as the
author but themselves, after they were given up to them. The
lust in the heart, and the temptation without, easily close and
mix interests with one another; as the fire in a coal-pit will
with the fuel, if the streams derived' into it for the quenching
it be dammed up. The natural passions will run to a tempta-
tion, as the waters of a river tumble towards the sea. When
a man that has bridled in a high-mettled horse from running
out, gives him the reins; or a huntsman takes off the string that
held the dog, and lets him run after the hare ; are they the im-
mediate cause of the motion of the one or the other? No, but
the mettle and strength of the horse, and the natural inclina-
tion of the hound, both which are left to their own motions to
pursue their own natural instincts. Man does as naturally tend
to sin as a stone to the centre, or as a weighty thing inclines to
a motion to the earth. It is from the propension of man's na-
ture that he drinks up iniquity like water; and God does no
more when he leaves a man to sin, by taking away the hedge
which stopped him, but leave him to his natural inclination;
as a man that breaks up a dam he has placed, leaves the stream
to run in its natural channel, or one that takes away a prop
from a stone to let it fall, leaves it only to that nature which
inclines it to a descent; both have their motion from their own
nature, and man his sin from his own corruption.1 The with-
drawing the sunbeams is not the cause of darkness, but the
shadiness of the earth ; nor is the departure of the sun the
cause of winter, but the coldness of the air and earth, which
was tempered and beaten back into the bowels of the earth by
the vigour of the sun, upon whose departure they return to
their natural state : the sun only leaves the earth and air as it
found them at the beginning of the spring, or the beginning of
the day. If God do not give a man grace to melt him, yet he
cannot be said to communicate to him that nature which hard-
ens him, which man has from himself. As God was not the
cause of the first sin of Adam, which was the root of all other,
so he is not the cause of the following sins, which as branches
spring from that root; man's free-will was the cause of the first
sin, and the corruption of his nature by it the cause of all suc-
ceeding sins. God does not immediately harden any man, but
does propose those things from whence the natural vice of man

1 Amyrald. de Picdcst. p. 107.
Vol. II.— 26

]<J8 ON THE HOLINESS Ok GOD.

takes an occasion to strengthen and nourish itself: hence God
is said to harden Pharaoh's heart, Exod. vii. 13, by concurring
with the magicians in turning their rods into serpents, which
stiffened his heart against Moses, conceiving him by reason of
that to have no more power than other men, and was an occa-
sion of his further hardening. And Pharaoh is said to harden
himself, Exod. viii. 32, that is, in regard of his own natural
passion.

[3.J God is holy and righteous, because he does not with-
draw from man till man deserts him. To say that God with-
drew that grace from Adam which he had afforded him in
creation, or any thing that was due to him, till he had abused
the gifts of God, and turned them to an end contrary to that of
creation, would be a reflection upon the Divine holiness. God
was first deserted by man before man was deserted by God;
and man does first contemn and abuse the common grace of
God, and those relics of natural light that enlighten every man
that comes into the world, John i. 9, before God leaves him to
the hurry of his own passions. Ephraim was first joined to
idols, before God pronounced the fatal sentence " Let him
alone," Hos. iv. 17. And the heathen first changed the glory
of the incorruptible God, before God withdrew his common
grace from the corrupted creature, Rom. i. 23, 24; and they
first served the creature more than the Creator, before the Cre-
ator gave them up to the slavish chains of their vile affections,
verses 25, 26. Israel first cast off God before God cast off them,
but then he " gave them up to their oavu hearts' lust, and they
walked in their own counsels," Psal.lxxxi. 11, 12. Since sin en-
tered into the world by the fall of Adam, and the blood of all his
posterity was tainted, man cannot do any thing that is formally
good; not for want of faculties, but for the want of a righteous
habit in those faculties, especially in the will; yet God disco-
vers himself to man in the works of his hands; he has left in
him footsteps of natural reason, he does attend him with com-
mon motions of his Spirit, corrects him for his faults with
gentle chastisements. He is near unto all in some kind of in-
structions. He puts many times providential bars in their way
of sinning, but when they will rush into it as the horse into the
battle, when they will rebel against the light, God does often
leave them to their own course, sentence him that is filthy to
be filthy still, Rev. xxii. 11, which is a righteous act of God,
as he is Rector and Governor of the world. Man's not receiv-
ing or not improving what God gives, is the cause of God's not
giving further, or taking away his own, which before he had
bestowed. This is so far from being repugnant to the holiness
and righteousness of God, that it is rather a commendable act
of his holiness and righteousness, as the Rector of the world.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. \ 99

not to let those gifts continue in the hand of a man who abuses
them contrary to his glory. Who will blame a father, that,
after all the good counsels he has given his son to reclaim him,
all the corrections he has inflicted on him for his irregular prac-
tices, leaves him to his own courses, and withdraws those as-
sistances which he scoffed at and turned the deaf ear unto? Or
who will blame the physician for deserting the patient who re-
jects his counsel, will not follow his prescriptions, but dashes
his physic against the wall? No man will blame him, no man
will say that he is the cause of the patient's death, but the true
cause is the fury of the distemper, and the obstinacy of the
diseased person, to which the physician left him. And who
can justly blame God in this case, who yet never denied sup-
plies of grace to any that sincerely sought it at his hands; and
what man is there that lies under a hardness, but first was
guilty of very provoking sins? What unholiness is it to dsprive
men of those assistances because of their sin, and afterwards
to direct those counsels and practices of theirs which he has
justly given them up unto, to serve the ends of his own glory
in his own methods?

[4.] Which will appear further by considering, that God is
not obliged to continue his grace to them. It was at his liberty
whether he would give any renewing grace to Adam after his
fall, or to any of his posterity; he was at his own liberty to
withhold it or communicate it. But if he were under any ob-
ligation then, surely he must be under less now, since the mul-
tiplication of sin by his creatures: but if the obligation were
none just after the fall, there is no pretence now to fasten any
such obligation on God. That God had no obligation at first
has been spoken to before: he is less obliged to continue his
grace after a repeated refusal, and a peremptory abuse, than
he was bound to proffer it after the first apostasy. God cannot
be charged with unholiness in withdrawing his grace after we
have received it, unless we can make it appear that his grace
was a thing due to us, as we are his creatures, and as he is
Governor of the world. What prince looks upon himself as
obliged to reside in any particular place of his kingdom? But
suppose he be bound to inhabit in one particular city, yet after
the city rebels against him, is he bound to continue his court
there, spend his revenue among rebels, endanger his own hon-
our and security, enlarge their charter, or maintain their an-
cient privileges? Is it not most just and righteous for him to
withdraw himself and leave them to their own tumultuousness
and sedition, whereby they should eat the fruit of their own
doings? If there be an obligation on God as a governor, it
would rather lie on the side of justice, to leave man to the
power of the devil whom he courted, and the prevalency of

200 0N TIIE HOLINESS OF GOD.

those lusts he has so often caressed, and wrap up in a cloud all
his common illuminations, and leave him destitute of all com-
mon workings of his Spirit.

Prop. (8.) God's holiness is not blemished, by his command-
ing those things sometimes which seem to be against nature,
or thwart some other of his precepts. As when God command-
ed Abraham with his own hand to sacrifice his son, Gen. xxii.
2, there was nothing of unrighteousness in it. God has a sove-
reign dominion over the lives and beings of his creatures,
whereby as he creates one day, he might annihilate the next;
and by the same right that he might demand the life of Isaac,
as being his creature, he might demand the obedience of Abra-
ham in a ready return of that to him, which he had so long en-
joyed by his grant. It is true, killing is unjust when it is done
without cause, and by a private authority ; but the authority
of God surmounts all private and public authority whatsoever.
Our lives are due to him when he calls for them, and they are
more than once forfeited to him by reason of transgression. But
howsoever the case is, God commanded him to do it for the
trial of his grace, but suffered him not to do it in favour to his
ready obedience: but had Isaac been actually slain and offered,
how had it been unrighteous in God, who enacts laws for the
regulation of his creature, but never intended them to the pre-
judice of the rights of his sovereignty? Another case is that of
the Israelites borrowing jewels of the Egyptians by the order
of God, Exod. xi. 2, 3; xii. 36. Is not God Lord of man's
goods, as well as their lives? What have any, they have not
received? and that not as proprietors independent on God, but
his stewards; and may not he demand a portion of his steward
to bestow upon his favourite? He that had power to dispose
of the Egyptians' goods, had power to order the Israelites to
ask them. Besides, God acted the part of a just judge in order-
ing them their wages for their service in this method, and
making their taskmasters give them some recompense for their
unjust oppression so many years: it was a command from God
therefore, rather for the preservation of justice, (the basis of all
those laws which link human society,) than any infringement
of it. It was a material recompense in part, though not a
formal one in the intention of the Egyptians. It was but in
part a recompense; it must needs come short of the damage the
poor captives had sustained by the tyranny of their masters,
who had enslaved them contrary to the rules of hospitality;
and could not make amends for the lives of the poor infants
of Israel, whom they had drowned in the river. He that might
for the unjust oppression of his people have taken away all
their Jives, destroyed the whole nation, and put the Israelites
into the possession of their lands, could without any unrighte-

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 201

ousness dispose of part of their goods: and it was rather an act
of clemency to leave them some part, who had doubly forfeited
all. Again, the Egyptians were as ready to lend by God's
influence, as the Israelites were to ask by God's order: and
though it was a loan, God, as Sovereign of the world, and Lord
of the earth and the fulness thereof, alienated the property by
assuming them to the use of the tabernacle, to which service
most, if not all of them, were afterwards dedicated. God, who
is Lawgiver, has power to dispense with his own law, and
make use of his own goods, and dispose of them as he pleases.
It is no unholiness in God to dispose of that which he has a
right unto. Indeed God cannot command that which is in its
own nature intrinsically evil; as to command a rational crea-
ture not to love him, not to worship him, to call God to wit-
ness to a lie; these are intrinsically evil; but for the disposing
of the lives and goods of his creatures, which they have from
him in right, and nol in absolute propriety, is not evil in him,
because there is no repugnancy in his own nature to such acts,
nor is it any thing inconsistent with the natural duty of a crea-
ture, and in such cases he may use what instruments he please.

The point was, that holiness is a glorious perfection of the
nature of God. We have showed the nature of this holiness
in God, what it is; and we have demonstrated it, and proved
that God is holy, and must needs be so; and also the purity of
his nature in all his acts about sin: let us now improve it by
way of use.

4. Use.

Use (I.) Is holiness a transcendent perfection belonging to
the nature of God ? The first use shall be of instruction and
information.

[1.] How great and how frequent is the contempt of this
eminent perfection in the Deity! Since the fall, this attri-
bute, which renders God most amiable in himself, renders him
most hateful to his apostate creature. It is impossible that
he that loves iniquity, can affect that which is irreconcila-
bly contrary to the iniquity he loves. Nothing so contrary
to the sinfulness of man as the holiness of God, and no-
thing is thought of by the sinner with so much detestation.
How do men account that which is the most glorious per-
fection of the Divinity, unworthy to be regarded as an ac-
complishment of their own souls! And when they are pressed
to an imitation of it, and a detestation of what is contrary
to it, have the same sentiments in their heart which the devil
had in his language to Christ, Why art thou come to tor-
ment us before our time? What an enmity the world natu-
rally has to this perfection, I think is visible in the practice of
the heathen, who among all their heroes which they deified,

202 0N TIIE HOLINESS OF GOD.

elevated none to that dignity among them for this or that moral
virtue that came nearest to it, but for their valour, or some use-
fulness in the concerns of this life. JEsculapius was deified
for his skill in the cure of diseases; Bacchus for the use of the
grape; Vulcan for his operations by fire; Hercules for his de-
stroying of tyrants and monsters; but none for their mere vir-
tue: as if any thing of purity were unworthy their considera-
tion in the frame of a deity, when it is the glory of all other
perfections: so essential it is, that when men reject the imita-
tion of this, God regards it as a total rejection of himself,
though they own all the other attributes of his nature: " Israel
would none of me," Psal. lxxxi. 11; why? because they
walked not in his ways, ver. 13; those ways wherein the
purity of the Divine nature was most conspicuous. They
would own him in his power, when they stood in need of a
deliverance; they would own him in his mercy, when they
were plunged in distress; but they would not imitate him in
his holiness. This being the lustre of the Divine nature, the
contempt of it is an obscuring all his other perfections, and a
dashing a blot upon his whole escutcheon. To own all the
rest, and deny him this, is to frame him as an unbeautiful
monster, a deformed power. Indeed, all sin is against this
attribute; all sin aims in general at the being of God, but in
particular at the holiness of his being: all sin is a violence to
this perfection; there is not an iniquity in the world, but directs
its venomous sting against the Divine purity: some sins are
directed against his omniscience, as secret wickedness; some
against his providence, as distrust; some against his mercy, as
unbelief; some against his wisdom, as neglecting the means
instituted by him, censuring his ways and actings; some against
his power, as trusting in means more than in God, and the
immoderate fear of men more than of God ; some against his
truth, as distrusting his promise, or not fearing his threatening;
but all agree together in their enmity against this, which is the
peculiar glory of the Deity, every one of them is a receding
from the Divine image; and the blackness of every one is the
deeper, by how much the distance of it from the holiness of
God is the greater. This contrariety to the holiness of God is
the cause of all the absolute atheism (if there be any such) in
the world. What was the reason the fool has said in his heart,
There is no God? but because the fool is corrupt, and has done
abominable works, Psal. xiv. 1. If they believe the being of
a God, their own reason will enforce them to imagine him holy:
therefore rather than fancy a holy God, they would fain fancy
none at all.

In particular,

The holiness of God is injured, in univorthy representations

ON THE HOLINESS OF OOD. 203

of God, and imaginations of him in our own minds. The
heathen fell under this guilt, and ascribed to their idols those
vices which their own sensuality inclined them to, unworthy
of a man, much more unworthy of a God, that they might find
a protection of their crimes in the practice of their idols. But
is this only the notion of the heathens? may there not be
many among us, whose love to their lusts and desires of sinning
without control, move them to slander God in their thoughts
rather than reform their lives, and are ready to frame, by the
power of their imaginative faculty, a God not only winking,
but smiling at their impurities? I am sure God charges the
impieties of men upon this score, in that psalm, (Psal. 1. 21,)
which seems to be a representation of the day of judgment, as
some gather from ver. 6. When God sums up all together,
"These things hast thou done, and I kept silence: thou
thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself;'' not a
detester, but approver of thy crimes. And the psalmist seems
to express God's loathing of sin in such a manner, as intimates
it to be contrary to the ideas and resemblances men make of
him in their minds; "For thou art not a God that hath plea-
sure in wickedness," Psal. v. 4; as we say in vindication of a
man, he is not such a' man as you imagine him to be: thou
art not such a God as the world commonly imagines thee to
be, a God taking pleasure in iniquity. It is too common for
men to fancy God not as he is, but as they would have him;
strip him of his excellency for their own security. As God
made man after his image, man would dress God after his own
modes, as may best suit the content of his lusts, and encourage
him in a course of sinning. For when they can frame such a
notion of God, as if he were a countenancer of sin, they will
derive from thence a reputation to their crimes, commit wick-
edness with an unbounded licentiousness, and crown their vices
with the name of virtues, because they are so like to the senti-
ments of that God they fancy. From hence, as the psalmist
says in the psalm before mentioned, arises that mass of vice in
the world; such conceptions are the mother and nurse of all
impiety; I question not but the first spring is some wrong
notion of God in regard of his holiness. We are as apt to ima-
gine God as we would have him, as the black Ethiopians were
to draw the image of their gods after their own dark hue, and
paint him with their own colour: as a philosopher in Theodoret
speaks, if oxen and lions had hands, and could paint as men
do, they would frame the images of their gods according to
their own likeness and complexion. Such notions of God ren-
der him a swinish being, and worse than the vilest idols adored
by the Egyptians, when men fancy a God indulgent to their
appetites, and most sordid lusts.

204 0N THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

In defacing the image of God in our souls. God in the
first draught of man conformed him to his own image, or made
him an image of himself: because we find that in regeneration
this image is renewed; "The new man, which after God is
created in righteousness and true holiness," Eph. iv. 24. He
did not take angels for his pattern in the first polishing the soul,
but himself. In defacing this image we cast dirt upon the holi-
ness of God, which was his pattern in the framing of us; and
rather choose to be conformed to Satan, who is God's grand
enemy, to have God's image wiped out of us, and the devil's
pictured in us. Therefore natural men in an unregenerate state
may justly be called devils, since our Saviour called the worst
man, Judas, so, John vi. 70, and Peter, one of the best, Matt,
xvi. 23: and if this title be given by an infallible judge to one
of the worst, and one of the best, it may without wrong to any
be ascribed to all men that wallow in their sin, which is directly
contrary to that illustrious image God did imprint upon them.
How often is it seen that men control the light of their own
nature, and stain the clearest beams of that candle of the Lord
in their own spirits, that fly in the face of their own con-
sciences; and say to them, as Ahab to Micaiah, Thou didst
never prophesy good to me ; thou didst never encourage me in
those things that are pleasing to the flesh; and use it at the
same rate as the wicked king did the prophet, imprison it in
unrighteousness, Rom. i. 18; because it starts up in them some-
times sentiments of the holiness of God, which it represents in
the soul of man. How jolly are many men when the exhala-
tions of their sensitive part rise up to cloud the exactest princi-
ple of moral nature in their minds, and render the monstrous
principles of the law of corruption more lively! Whence arises
the wickedness which hath been committed with an open face
in the world, and the applause that has been often given to the
worst of villanies; Have we not known among ourselves, men
to glory in their shame, and esteem that a most genteel accom-
plishment of man, which is the greatest blot upon his nature,
and which, if it were upon God, would render him no God, but
an impure being ; so that to be a gentleman among us has been
the same as to be an incarnate devil ; and to be a man, was to
be no better, but worse than a brute? Vile wretches! Is not
this a contempt of Divine holiness, to kill that Divine seed
which lies languishing in the midst of corrupted nature; to cut
up any sprouts of it as weeds unworthy to grow in their gar-
dens, and cultivate what is the seed of hell? prefer the rotten
fruits of Sodom, marked with a Divine curse, before those relics
of the fruits of Eden, of God's own planting.

The holiness of God is injured in charging our sin upon
God. Nothing is more natural to men, than to seek excuses

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 205

for their sin, and transfer it from themselves to the next at
hand; and rather than fail, shift it upon God himself; and if
they can bring God into a society with them in sin, they will
hug themselves in a security that God cannot punish that guilt
wherein he is a partner. Adam's children are not of a differ-
ent disposition from Adam himself, who after he was arraigned
and brought to his trial, boggles not at flinging dirt in the face
of God his Creator, and accuses him as if he had given him the
woman, not to be his help but his ruin: " And the man said,
The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me
of the tree, and I did eat," Gen. iii. 12. He never supplicates
for pardon, nor seeks a remedy, but reflects his crime upon
God: Had I been alone, as I was first created, I had not eaten,
but the woman, whom I received as a special gift from thee,
has proved my tempter and my bane. When man could not
be like God in knowledge, he endeavoured to make God like
him in his crime; and when his ambition failed of equalizing
himself with God, he did, with an insolence too common to
corrupted nature, attempt, by. the imputation of his sin, to
equal the divinity with himself. Some think Cain had the
same sentiment in his answer to God's demand, where his
brother was, " Am I my brother's keeper?" Gen. iv 9. Art
not thou the Keeper and Governor of the world; why didst
not thou take care of him, and hinder my killing him, and
drawing this guilt upon myself, and terror upon my con-
science? David was not behind, when, after the murder of
Uriah, he sweeps the dirt from his own door to God's; " The
sword devoureth one as well as another," 2 Sam. xi. 25: fath-
ering that solely upon Divine providence, which was his own
wicked contrivance: though afterwards he is more ingenuous
in clearing God, and charging himself; " Against thee, thee
only have I sinned," Psal. li. 4: and he clears God -in his
judgment too. It is too common for the foolishness of man to
pervert his way, and then his heart frets against the Lord,
Prov. xix. 3. He studies mischief, runs in a way of sin, and
when he has conjured up troubles to himself by his own folly,
he excuses himself, and with indignation charges God as the
author both of his sin and misery, and sets his mouth against
the heavens. It is a more horrible thing to accuse God as a
principal or accessory in our guilt, than to conceive him to be
a favourer of our iniquity; yet both are bad enough.

The holiness of God is injured, ivhen men will sludy argu-
ments from the holy ivorcl of God to colour and shelter their
crimes. When men will seek for a shelter for their lies, in that
of the midwives to preserve the children, or in that of Rahab
to save the spies; as if because God rewarded their fidelity, he
countenanced their sin. How often is Scripture wrested to be
Vol. II.— 27

206 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

a plea for unbecoming practices, that God in his word may be
imagined a patron for their iniquity! It is not unknown that
some have maintained their quaffing and carousing from Eccl.
viii. 15, that " a man hath no better thing under the sun, than
to eat, and to drink, and to be merry;" and their gluttony from
Matt. xv. 11, "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a
man." The Jesuits' morals are a transcript of this. How
often has the passion of our Saviour, the highest expression of
God's holiness, been employed to stain it, and encourage the
most debauched practices! Grace has been turned into wan-
tonness, and the abundance of grace been used as a blast to
increase the flames of sin; as if God had no other aim in that
work of redemption, but to discover himself more indulgent to
our sensual appetites, and by his severity with his Son, become
more gracious to our lusts. This is to feed the roots of hell
with the dews of heaven, to make grace a pander for the abuse
of it, and to employ the expressions of his holiness in his word
to be a sword against the essential holiness of his nature; as if
a man should draw an apology for his treason out of that law
that was made to forbid, not to protect his rebellion. Not the
meanest instrument in the temple was to be alienated from the
use it was by Divine order appointed to, nor was it to be em-
ployed in any common use; and shall the word of God, which
is the image of his holiness, be transferred by base interpreta-
tions to be an advocate for iniquity. Such an ill use of his
word reflects upon that hand which imprinted those characters
of purity and righteousness upon it; as the misinterpretation of
the wholesome laws of a prince, made to discourage debauchery,
reflects upon his righteousness and sincerity in enacting them.
The holiness of God is injured, when men to ill put up peti-
tions to God to favour them in a ivicked design. Such there
are, and taxed by the apostle, James iv. 3. " Ye ask amiss, that
ye may consume it upon your lusts:" who desired mercies
from God, with an intent to make them instruments of sin, and
weapons of unrighteousness; as it is reported of a thief, that
he always prayed for the success of his robbery. It has not
been rare in the world to appoint fasts and prayers for success
in wars manifestly unjust, and commenced upon breaches of
faith. Many covetous men petition God to prosper them in
their unjust gain; as if the blessed God sat in his pure majesty
upon a throne of grace, to espouse unjust practices, and make
iniquity prosperous. There are such as offer sacrifice with an
evil mind, Prov. xxi. 27; to barter with God for a Divine
blessing to spirit a wicked contrivance. How great a contempt
of the holiness of God is this! How inexcusable would it be
for a favourite to address himself to a just prince with this lan-
guage! Sir, I desire a boon of such lands that lie near me, for

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

207

an addition to my estate, that I may have supports for my de-
bauchery, and be able to play the villain more powerfully
among my neighbours. Hereby he implies that his prince is
a friend to such crimes and wickedness he intends his petition
for. Is not this the language of many men's hearts in the im-
mediate presence of God? The order of prayer runs thus,
"Hallowed be thy name," first to have a deep sense of the
holiness of the Divine nature, and an ardent desire for the glory
of it. This order is inverted by asking those things which are
not agreeable to the will of God, not meet for us to ask, nor
meet for God to give; or asking things agreeable to the will of
God, but with a wicked intention. This is, in effect, to desire
God to strip himself of his holiness, and commit sacrilege upon
his own nature to gratify our lusts.

The purity of God is contemned, in hating and scoffing at
the holiness which is in a creature. Whoever looks upon the
holiness of a creature as an unlovely thing, can have no good
opinion of the amiableness of Divine purity. Whosoever hates
those qualities and graces that resemble God in any person,
must needs contemn the original pattern, which is more emi-
nent in God. If there be no comeliness in a creature's holiness,
to render it grateful to us, we should say of God himself, were
he visible among us, with those in the prophet, Isa. liii. 2,
" There is no beauty that we should desire him." Holiness is
beautiful in itself. If God be the most lovely being, that which
is a likeness to him, so far as it does resemble him, must needs
be amiable, because it partakes of God: and therefore those
that see no beauty in an inferior holiness, but contemn it be-
cause it is a purity above them, contemn God much more; he
that hates that which is imperfect merely for that excellency
which is in it, does much more hate that which is perfect,
without any mixture or stain. Holiness being the glory of
God, the peculiar title of the Deity, and from him derived unto
the nature of a creature, he that mocks this in a person, derides
God himself; and when he cannot abuse the purity in the
Deity, he will do it in his image ; as rebels that cannot wrong
the king in his person, will do it in his picture, and his subjects
that are loyal to him. He that hates the picture of a man,
hates the person represented by it much more; he that hates
the beams, hates the sun; the holiness of a creature is but a
beam from that infinite Sun, a stream from that eternal Foun-
tain. Where there is a derision of the purity of any creature,
there is a greater reflection upon God in that derision, as he is
the author of it. If a mixed and stained holiness be more the
subject of any man's scoffs than a great deal of sin, that person
has a disposition more roundly to scoff at God himself, should
he appear in that unblemished and unspotted purity which in-

208 ON TIIE HOLINESS OF GOD.

finitely shines in his nature. 0! it is a dangerous thing to
scoff at and deride holiness in any person, though never so
mean; such do deride and scoff at the most holy God.

The holiness of God is injured by our unprepared addresses
to him, when like swine we come into the presence of God
with all our mire reeking and steaming upon us. A holy God
requires a holy worship; and if our best duties, having filth in
every part, as performed by us, are unmeet for God, how much
more unsuitable are dead and dirty duties to a living and im-
mense holiness! Slight approaches and drossy frames speak
us to have imaginations of God as of a slight and sottish being.
This is worse than the heathens practised, who would purge
their flesh before they sacrificed, and make some preparations
in a seeming purity, before they would enter into their temples.
God is so holy, that were our services as refined as those of
angels, we could not present him with a service meet for his
holy nature, Josh. xxiv. 19. We contemn, then, this perfection
when we come before him without due preparation; as if God
himself were of an impure nature, and did not deserve our
purest thoughts in our applications to him; as if any blemished
and polluted sacrifice were good enough for him, and his nature
deserved no better. When we excite not those elevated frames
of spirit, which are due to such a Being, when we think to put
him off with a lame and imperfect service, we worship him not
according to the excellency of his nature, but put a slight upon
his majestic sanctity: or when we nourish in our duties those
foolish imaginations which creep upon us; or when we bring
into, and continue our worldly, carnal, debauched fancies in his
presence, worse than the nasty servants or bemired dogs, a man
would blush to be attended with in his visits to a neat person.
To be conversing with sordid sensualities, when we are at the
feet of an infinite God, sitting upon the throne of his holiness,
is as much a contempt of him, as it would be of a prince, to
bring filth with us, when we come to present a petition to him
clothed in his royal robes; or as it would have been to God, if
the high priest should have swept all the blood and excrements
of the sacrifices from the foot of the altar into the holy of holies,
and heaped it up before the mercy-seat, where the presence of
God dwelt between the cherubim, and afterwards shovelled it
up into the ark, to be lodged with Aaron's rod and the pot of
manna.

God's holiness is slighted in depending upon our imperfect
services to bear us out before the tribunal of God. This is
too ordinary: the Jews were often infected with it, Rom. hi.,
who, not well understanding the enormity of their transgres-
sions, the interweaving of sin with their services, and the un-
spottedness of the Divine purity, mingled an opinion of merit

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 209

with their sacrifices, and thought, by the cutting the throat of a
beast, and offering it upon God's altar, they had made a suffi-
cient compensation to that holiness they had offended. Not to
speak of many among the Romanists, who have the same
notion, thinking to make satisfaction to God, by erecting an
hospital or endowing a church, as if this injured perfection
could be contented with the dregs of their purses and the offer-
ing of an unjust mammon, more likely to mind God of the in-
jury they have done him, than contribute to the appeasing of
him. But is it not too ordinary with miserable men, whose
consciences accuse them of their crimes, to rely upon the mum-
bling of a few formal prayers, and in the strength of them to
think to stand before the tremendous tribunal of God, and meet
with a discharge upon this account from any accusation this
Divine perfection can present against them? Nay, do not the
best Christians sometimes find a principle in them, that makes
them stumble in their goings forth to Christ, and glorifying the
holiness of God in that method which he has appointed ? Some-
times casting an eye at their grace, and sticking awhile to this
or that duty, and gazing at the glory of the temple-building,
while they should more admire the glorious presence that fills
it. What is all this but a vilifying of the holiness of the Divine
nature, as though it would be well enough contented with our
impurities and imperfections, because they look like a righteous-
ness in our estimation? As though dross and dung, which are
the titles the apostle gives to all the righteousness of a fallen
creature, Phil. iii. 8, were valuable in the sight of God, and
sufficient to render us comely before him. It is a blasphemy
against this attribute, to pretend that any thing so imperfect, so
daubed as the best of our services are, can answer to that which
is infinitely perfect, and be a ground of demanding eternal life:
it is, at best, to set up a gilded dagon as a fit companion for the
ark of his holiness; our own righteousness as a suitable match
for the righteousness of God: as if he had repented of the claim
he made by the law to an exact conformity, and thrown off the
holiness of his nature for the fondling of a corrupted creature.
Rude and foolish notions of the Divine purity, are clearly evi-
denced by any confidence in any righteousness of our own,
though never so splendid. It is a rendering the righteousness
of God as dull and obscure as that of men; a mere outside, as
their own; as blind as the heathens pictured their Fortune, that
knew as little how to discern the nature and value of the offer-
ings made to her, as to distribute her gifts; as if it were all one
to them, to have a dog or a lamb presented in sacrifice; as if
God did not well understand his own nature, when he enacted
so holy a law, and strengthened it with so severe a threatening;
which must follow upon our conceit, that he will accept a right-

210

UN THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

eousness lower than that, which bears some suitableness to
the holiness of his own nature, and that of his law; and that
he could easily be put off with a pretended and counterfeit
service. What are the services of the generality of men, but
suppositions that they can bribe God to an indulgence of them
in their sins, and by an oral sacrifice cause him to divest him-
self of his hatred of their former iniquities, and countenance
their following practices? As the harlot that would return
fresh to her uncleanness, upon the confidence that her peace-
offerings had contented the righteousness of God, Prov. vii. 14:
as though a small service could make him wink at our sins,
and lay aside the glory of his nature; when, alas! the best
duties in the most gracious persons in this life, are but as
mixtures, a composition of myrrh and froth, since there are
swarms of corruptions in their nature, and secret sins that they
need a cleansing from.

It is a contemning the holiness of God, when we charge the law
of God with rigidness. We cast dirt upon the holiness of God,
when we blame the law of God, because it shackles us, and
prohibits our desired pleasures; and hate the law of God, as they
did the prophets because they did not prophesy smooth things;
but called to them, to get them out of the way, and turn aside
out of the path, and cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from
before them, Isa. xxx. 10, 11. Put us no more in mind of the
holiness of God, and the holiness of his law; it is a troublesome
thing for us to hear of it: let him be gone from us, since he will
not countenance our vices, and indulge our crimes; we would
rather hear there is no God, than you should tell us of a holy
one. We are contrary to the law, when we wish it were not
so exact; and therefore contrary to the holiness of God, which
set the stamp of exactness and righteousness upon it. We
think him injurious to our liberty, when by his precept he
thwarts our pleasure ; we wish it of another frame, more mild,
more suitable to our minds. It is the same, as if we should
openly blame God for consulting with his own righteousness,
and not with our humours, before he settled his law; that he
should not have drawn it from the depths of his righteous
nature, but squared it to accommodate our corruption.

This being the language of such complaints, is a reproving
God because he would not be unholy that we might be unright-
eous with impunity. Had the Divine law been suited to our
corrupt state, God must have been unholy to have complied
with his rebellious creature. To charge the law with rigidness,
either in language or practice, is the highest contempt of God's
holiness; for it is an implicit wish, that God were as defiled,
polluted, disorderly, as our corrupted selves.

The holiness of God is injured ojrinionativcly .

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 211

In the opinion of venial sins. The Romanists divide sins
into venial and mortal: mortal, are those which deserve eternal
death; venial, the lighter sort of sins, which rather deserve to be
pardoned than punished; or if punished, not with an eternal,
out temporal punishment. This opinion has no foundation, but
is contrary to Scripture. How can any sin be in its own na-
ture venial, when the due wages of every sin is death, Rom. vi.
23, and he, who continues not in every thing that the law com-
mands, falls under a curse? Gal. hi. 10. It is a mean thought
of the holiness and majesty of God to imagine, that any sin
which is against an infinite majesty, and as infinite a purity both
in the nature of God and the law of God, should not be consid-
ered as infinitely heinous. All sins are transgressions of the
eternal law, and in every one the infinite holiness of God is in
some way slighted.

In the opinion of works of supererogation; that is, such
works as .are not commanded by God, which yet have such a
dignity and worth in their own nature, that the performers of
them do not only merit at God's hands for themselves, but fill
up a treasure of merits for others, that come short of fulfilling
the precepts God has enjoined. It is such a mean thought of
God's holiness, that the Jews in all the charges brought against
them in Scripture, were never guilty of. And if you consider
what pitiful things they are, which are within the compass of
such works, you have sufficient reason to bewail the ignorance
of man, and the low esteem he has of so glorious a perfection.
The whipping themselves often in a week, extraordinary
watchings, fastings, macerating their bodies, wearing a capu-
chin's habit, &c. are pitiful things to give content to an infinite
purity. As if the precept of God required only the inferior
degrees of virtue, and the counsels the. more high and excel-
lent; as if the law of God, which the psalmist counts perfect,
Psal. xix. 7, did not command all good, and forbid all evil; as
if the holiness of God had forgotten itself in the framing the
law, and made it a scanty and defective rule; and the righte-
ousness of a creature were not only able to make an eternal
righteousness, but surmount it. As man would be at first as
knowing as God, so some of his posterity would be more holy
than God; set up a wisdom against the wisdom of God, and a
purity above the Divine purity. Adam was not so presump-
tuous, he intended no more than an equalling God in know-
ledge; but those would exceed him in righteousness, and not
only presume to render a satisfaction for themselves to the
holiness they have injured, but to make a purse for the supply
of others that are indigent, that they may stand before the tri-
bunal of God with a confidence in the imaginary righteousness
of a creature. How horrible is it for those that come short of

212 0N TIIE HOLINESS OF GOD.

the law of God themselves, to think that they can have enough
for a loan to their neighbours! An unworthy opinion.

[2.] This attribute may inform us, how great is our fall from
God, and how distant we are from him. View the holiness of
God, and take a prospect of the nature of man, and be aston-
ished to see a person created in the Divine image, degenerated
into the image of the devil. We are as far fallen from the
holiness of God, which consists in a haired of sin, as the lowest
point of the earth is from the highest point of the heavens.
The devil is not more fallen from the rectitude of his nature
and likeness to God, than we are; and that we are not in the
same condition with those apostate spirits, is not from any
thing in our nature, but from the mediation of Christ, upon
which account God has indulged in us a continuance of some
remainders of that which Satan is wholly deprived of. We
are departed from our original pattern; we were created to
live the life of God, that is, a life of holiness; but now we are
alienated from the life of God, Eph. iv. 18, and of a beautiful
piece we are become deformed, daubed over with the most
defiling mud. We work uncleanness with greediness, accord-
ing to our ability, as creatures; as God does work holiness
with affection and ardency, according to his infiniteness, as
Creator. More distant we are from God by reason of sin, than
the vilest creature, the most deformed toad or poisonous ser-
pent, is from the highest and most glorious angel. By for-
saking our innocence, we departed from God as our original
copy. The apostle might well say, that by sin, we are come
short of the glory of God, Rom. iii. 23. Interpreters trouble
themselves much about that place, Man is come short of the
glory of God, that is, of the holiness of God, which is the glory
of the Divine nature, and was pictured in the rational, innocent
creature. By the glory of God, is meant the holiness of God:
as 2 Cor. iii. 18. "Beholding as in a glass the glory of the
Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to
glory;" that is, the glory of God in the text, into the image of
which we are changed ; but the Scripture speaks of no other
image of God, but that of holiness. We are come short of the
glory of God; of the holiness of God, which is the glory of
God; and the image of it, which was the glory of man. By
sin, which is particular in opposition to the purity of God, man
was left many leagues behind any resemblance to God ; he
stripped off that which was the glory of his nature, and was
the only means of glorifying God as his Creator The word
vanspSvtat,, the apostles uses, is very significant, postponed by
sin an infinite distance from any imitation of God's holiness,
or any appearance before him in a garb of nature pleasing to
him. Let us lament our fall, and distance from God.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 213

[3.] All unholiness is vile and opposite to the nature of God.
It is such a loathsome thing, that the purity of God's eye is
averse from beholding, Hab. i. 3. It is not said there, that he
will not, but he cannot look on evil ; there cannot be any ami-
cableness between God and sin, the natures of both are so
directly and unchangably contrary to one another. Holiness
is the life of God, it endures as long as his life ; he must be
eternally averse from sin, he can live no longer than he lives
in the hatred and loathing of it. If he should for one instant
cease to hate it, he would cease to live. To be a holy God, is
as essential to him as to be a living God; and he would not be
a living, but a dead God, if he were in the least point of time
an unholy God. He cannot look on sin without loathing it,
he cannot look on sin but his heart rises against it. It must
needs be most odious to him, as that which is against the glory
of his nature, and directly opposite to that which is the lustre
and varnish of all his other perfections. It is the abominable
thing which his soul hates, Jer. xliv. 4; the vilest terms imagin-
able are used to signify it. Do you understand the loathsome-
ness of a miry swine, or the nauseousness of the vomit of a
dog? These are emblems of sin, 2 Pet. ii. 22. Can you en-
dure the steams of putrilied carcasses from an open sepulchre?
Rom. iii. 13. Or is the sight of a body overgrown with leprosy
grateful to you? So vile, so odious is sin in the sight of God.
It is no light thing then to fly in the face of God, to break his
eternal law, to dash both the tables in pieces, to trample the
transcript of God's own nature under our feet, to cherish that
which is inconsistent with his honour, to lift up our heels
against the glory of his nature, to join issue with the devil in
stabbing his heart, and depriving him of his life. Sin in every
part of it is an opposition to the holiness of God, and conse-
quently an envying him a being and life, as well as a glory.
If sin be such a thing, ye that love the Lord, hate evil.

[4.] Sin cannot escape a due punishment. A hatred of un-
righteousness, and consequently a will to punish it, is as essen-
tial to God, as a love of righteousness. Since he is not as a
heathen idol, but has eyes to see and purity to hate every ini-
quity, he will have an infinite justice to punish whatsoever is
against infinite holiness. As he loves every thing that is amia-
ble, so he loathes every thing that is filthy, and that constantly
without any change; his whole nature is set against it, he ab-
hors nothing but this. It is not the devil's knowledge or acti-
vity that his hatred is terminated in, but the malice and unho-
liness of his nature ; it is this only is the object of his severity.
It is in the recompense of this only, that there can be a mani-
festation of his justice.
Vol. II.— 28

214 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

Sill must be punished ; for,

This detestation of sin must be manifested. How should
we certainly know his loathing of it, if he did not manifest by
some act how ungrateful it is to him. As his love to righteous-
ness would not appear without rewarding it, so his hatred of
iniquity would be as little evidenced without punishing it : his
justice is the great witness to his purity. The punishment
therefore inflicted on the wicked shall be, in some respect, as
great as the rewards bestowed upon the righteous. Since the
hatred of sin is natural to God, it is as natural to him to show
one time or other his hatred of it. And since men have a con-
ceit that God is like them in impurity, there is a necessity of
some manifestation of himself to be infinitely distant from those
conceits they have of him: " I will reprove thee, and set them
in order before thine eyes," Psal. 1. 21. He would else en-
courage the injuries done to his holiness, favour the extrava-
gancies of the creature, and condemn, or at least slight the
righteousness both of his own nature and his sovereign law.
What way is there for God to manifest this hatred, but by
threatening the sinner? and what would this be but a vain
affrightment, and ridiculous to the sinner, if it were never to be
put in execution ? There is an indissoluble connexion between
his hatred of sin, and punishment of the offender: " The wick-
ed— his soul hateth. Upon the wicked he shall rain snares,
fire, and brimstone," &c. Psal. xi. 5, 6. He cannot approve of
it without denying himself, and a total impunity would be a
degree of approbation.

The displeasure of God is eternal and irreconcilable against
sin ; for sin being absolutely contrary to his holy nature, he is
eternally contrary to it: if there be not therefore a way to sepa-
rate the sin from the sinner, the sinner must lie under the dis-
pleasure of God; no displeasure can be manifested without
some marks of it upon the person that lies under that displea-
sure. The holiness of God will right itself of the wrongs done
to it, and scatter the profaners of it at the greatest distance from
him, which is the greatest punishment that can be inflicted;
for to be removed far from the Fountain of Life is the worst of
deaths. God can as soon lay aside his purity, as always for-
bear his displeasure against an impure person ; it is all one not
to hate it, and not to manifest his hatred of it.

As his holiness is natural and necessary, so is the punishment
of unholiness necessary to him. It is necessary that he should
abominate sin, and therefore necessary he should discountenance
it. The severities of God against sin are not vain scare-crows,
they have their foundation in the righteousness of his nature; it
is because he is a righteous and holy God, that he will not forgive
our transgressions and sins, Josh. xxiv. lf>, that is, that he will

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD, 2|5

punish them. The throne of his holiness is a fiery flame, Dan.
vii. 9, there is both a pure light and a scorching heat. What-
soever is contrary to the nature of God, will fall under the jus-
tice of God; he would else violate his own nature, deny his own
perfection, seem to be out of love with his own glory and life.
He does not hate it out of choice, but from the immutable pro-
pension of his nature; it is not so free an act of his will, as the
creation of man and angels, which he might have forborne as
well as effected. As the detestation of sin results from the uni-
versal rectitude of his nature, so the punishment of sin follows
upon that, as he is the righteous Governor of the world: it is as
much against his nature not to punish it, as it is against his na-
ture not to loathe it; he would cease to be holy, if he ceased to
hate it; and he would cease to hate it, if he ceased to punish it.
Neither the obedience of our Saviour's life, nor the strength of
his cries, could put a bar to the cup of his passion; God so hated
sin, that when it was but imputed to his Son, without any com-
mission of it, he would bring a hell upon his soul. Certainly,
if God could have hated sin without punishing it, his Son had
never felt the smart of his wrath: his love to his Son had been
strong enough to have caused him to forbear, had not the holi-
ness of his nature been stronger to move him to inflict a pun-
ishment according to the demerit of his sin. God cannot but be
holy, therefore cannot but be just, because injustice is a part of
unholiness.

Therefore there can be no communion between God and un-
holy spirits. How is it conceivable, that God should hate the
sin, and cherish the sinner with all his filth in his bosom; that
he should eternally detest the crime, and eternally fold the sin-
ner in his arms? Can less be expected from the purity of his
nature, than to separate an impure soul, as long as it remains
so? Can there be any delightful communion between those
whose natures are contrary ? Darkness and light may as soon kiss
each other, and become one nature ; God and the devil may as
soon enter into an eternal league and covenant together. For
God to have pleasure in wickedness, and to admit evil to dwell
with him, are things equally impossible to his nature, Psal. v. 4;
while he hates impurity, he cannot have communion with an
impure person. It may as soon be expected that God should
hate himself, offer violence to his own nature, lay aside his
purity as an abominable thing, and blot his own glory, as love
an impure person, entertain him as his delight, and set him in
the same heaven and happiness with himself and his holy an-
gels; he must needs loathe him, he must needs banish him from
his presence, which is the greatest punishment. God's holiness
and hatred of sin necessarily infer the punishment of it.

[5.] There is therefore a necessity of the satisfaction of the

216 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

holiness of God by some sufficient Mediator. The Divine purity
could not meet with any acquiescence in all mankind after the
fall: sin was hated, the sinner would be ruined, unless some
way were found out to repair the wrongs done to the holiness
of God; either the sinner must be condemned for ever, or some
satisfaction must be made, that the holiness of the Divine nature
might eternally appear in its full lustre. That it is essential to
the nature of God to hate all unrighteousness, as that which is
absolutely repugnant to his nature, none do question. That the
justice of God is so essential to him, as that sin could not be
pardoned without satisfaction, some do question: though this
latter seems rationally to follow upon the former.1 That holi-
ness is essential to the nature of God is evident, because else
God may as much be conceived without purity, as he might be
conceived without the creating the sun or stars. No man can
in his right wits frame a right notion of a Deity, without purity.
It would be a less blasphemy against the excellency of God, to
conceit him not knowing, than to imagine him not holy: and for
the essentialness of his justice, Joshua joins both his holiness
and his jealousy as going hand in hand together: " He is an holy
God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgres-
sions nor your sins," Josh. xxiv. 19.

But consider only the purity of God, since it is contrary to
sin, and consequently hating the sinner; the guilty person can-
not be reduced to God, nor can the holiness of God have any
complacency in a filthy person, but as fire has in stubble, to
consume it. How the holy God should be brought to delight
in man, without a salvo for the rights of his holiness, is not to
be conceived without an impeachment of the nature of God.
The law could not be abolished; that would reflect indeed upon
the righteousness of the Lawgiver: to abolish it, because of
sin, would imply a change of the rectitude of his nature: must
he change his holiness for the sake of that which was against
his holiness, in a compliance with a profane and unrighteous
creature? This should engage him rather to maintain his law
than to annul it. And to abrogate his law as soon as he had
enacted it, since sin stepped into the world presently after it,
would be no credit to his wisdom.

There must be a reparation made of the honour of God's
holiness: by ourselves it could not be without condemnation;
by another it could not not be without a sufficiency in the per-
son: no creature could do it. All the creatures being of a finite
nature, could not make a compensation for the disparagements
of infinite holiness. He must have despicable and vile thoughts
of this excellent perfection, that imagines that a few tears, and
the foolish fawniugs at the death of a creature, can be sufficient

1 Turretin. de Satisfac. p. 8.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. ^\1

to repair the wrongs and restore the rights of this attribute. It
must therefore be such a compensation as might be commen-
surate to the holiness of the Divine nature and the Divine law,
which could not be wrought by any, but him that was possess-
ed of a Godhead, to give efficacy and exact congruity to it.
The Person designed and appointed by God for so great an
affair, was one in the form of God, one equal with God, Phil,
ii. 6; who could not be termed by such a title of dignity, if he
had not been equal to God in the universal rectitude of the
Divine nature, and therefore in his holiness. The punishment
due to sin is translated to that Person for the righting Divine
holiness, and the righteousness of that Person is communicated
to the sinner for the pardon of the offending creature.

If the sinner had been eternally damned, God's hatred of sin
had been evidenced by the strokes of his justice, but his mercy
to a sinner had lain in obscurity. If the sinner had been par-
doned and saved without such a reparation, mercy had been
evident, but his holiness had hid its head for ever in his own
bosom. There was therefore a necessity of such a way to
manifest his purity, and yet to bring forth his mercy: that
mercy might not always sigh for the destruction of the crea-
ture, and that holiness might not mourn for the neglect of its
honour.

[6.] Hence it will follow, there is no justification of a sinner
by any thing in himself. After sin had set foot in the world,
man could present nothing to God acceptable to him, or bear-
ing any proportion to the holiness of his law, till God set forth
a Person, upon whose account the acceptation of our persons
and services is founded: "He hath made us accepted in the
Beloved," Eph. i. 6. The infinite purity of God is so glorious,
that it shames the holiness of angels, as the light of the sun
dims the light of the fire : much more will the righteousness of
fallen man, who is vile, and drinks up iniquity like water,
vanish into nothing in his presence. With what self-abasement
and abhorrence ought he to be possessed, that comes as short
of the angels in purity as a dunghill does of a star! The high-
est obedience that ever was performed by any mere man, since
lapsed nature, cannot challenge any acceptance with God, or
stand before so exact an inquisition. What person has such a
clear innocence and unspotted obedience in such a perfection,
as in any degree to suit the holiness of the Divine nature?
"Enter not into judgment with thy servant; for in thy sight
shall no man living be justified," Psal. cxliii. 2. If God should
debate the case simply with man in his own person, without
respecting the Mediator, he were not able to answer one of a
thousand. Though we are his servants, as David was, and
perform a sincere service, yet there are many little motes and

218 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

dust of sin in the best works, that cannot lie undiscovered from
the eye of his holiness: and if we come short in the least of
what the law requires, we are guilty of all, James ii. 10. So
that in thy sight shall no man living be justified: in the sight
of thy infinite holiness, which hates the least spot: in the sight
of thy infinite justice, which punishes the least transgression.

God would descend below his own nature, and vilify both
his knowledge and purity, should he accept that for a right-
eousness and holiness which is not so in itself; and nothing is
so which has the least stain upon it contrary to the nature of
God. The most holy saints in Scripture, upon a prospect of
his purity, have cast away all confidence in themselves; every
flash of the Divine purity has struck them into a deep sense of
their own impurity and shame for it. " Wherefore I abhor my-
self, and repent in dust and ashes," Job xlii. 6. What can the
language of any man be that lies under a sense of infinite ho-
liness, and his own defilement in the least, but that of the
prophet, "Woe is me! for I am undone?" Isa. vi. 5. And
what is there in the world can administer any other thought
than this, unless God be considered in Christ, reconciling the
world to himself? as a holy God, so righted, as that he can
dispense with the condemnation of a sinner, without dispens-
ing with his hatred of sin; pardoning the sin in the criminal,
because it has been punished in the Surety. That righteous-
ness which God has set forth for justification is not our own,
but a righteousness which is of God, Phil. hi. 9, 10; of God's
appointing, and of God's performing; appointed by the Father,
who is God, and performed by the Son, who is one with the
Father. A righteousness surmounting that of all the glorious
angels, since it is an immutable one which can never fail, an
everlasting righteousness, Dan. ix. 24. A righteousness wherein
the holiness of God can acquiesce, as considered in itself, be-
cause it is a righteousness of one equal with God. As we
therefore dishonour the Divine majesty, when we insist upon
our own imperfect righteousness for our justification; (as if a
mortal man were as just as God, and a man as pure as his Ma-
ker, Job iv. 17;) so we highly honour the purity of his nature,
when we charge ourselves with folly, acknowledge ourselves
unclean, and accept of that righteousness which gives a full
content to his infinite purity. There can be no justification of
a sinner by any thing in himself.

[7.] If holiness be a glorious perfection of the Divine nature,
then the Deity of Christ might be argued from hence. He is
indeed dignified with the title of the Holy One, Acts iii. 14, a
title often given to God in the Old Testament; and he is called
the Holy of holies, Dan. xi. 24, but because the angels seemed
to be termed holy ones, Dan. iv. 13. 17, and the most sacred

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 2J9

place in the temple was also called the holy of holies, I shall
not insist upon that. But you find our Saviour particularly
applauded by the angels, as holy; when this perfection of the
Divine nature, together with the incommunicable name of God,
are linked together and ascribed to him, Isa. vi. 3: " Holy,
holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his
glory:" which the apostle interprets of Christ, John xii. 39 — 41:
" Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened
their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor under-
stand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal
them. These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory and
spake of him." He that Isaiah saw environed with the sera-
phim in a reverential posture before his face, and praised as
most holy by them, was the true and eternal God; such accla-
mations belong to none but the great Jehovah, God blessed for
ever. But, says John, it was the glory of Christ that Isaiah
saw in this vision; Christ, therefore, is God blessed for ever, of
whom it was said, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts.1 The
evangelist had been speaking of Christ, the miracles which he
wrought, the obstinacy of the Jews against believing on him;
his glory, therefore, is to be referred to the subject he had been
speaking of. The evangelist was not speaking of the Father,
but of the Son, and cites those words out of Isaiah, not to teach
any thing of the Father, but to show that the Jews could not
believe in Christ. He speaks of him that had wrought so
many miracles; but Christ wrought those miracles: he speaks
of him whom the Jews refused to believe on; but Christ was
the Person they would not believe on, while they acknowledged
God. It was the glory of this Person Isaiah saw, and this
Person Isaiah spake of, if the words of the evangelist be of any
credit. The angels are too holy to give acclamations belonging
to God, to any but him that is God.

[8.] This attribute shows, God is fully fit for the government
of the world. The righteousness of God's nature qualifies him
to be Judge of the world. If he were not perfectly righteous
and holy, he were incapable to govern and judge the world;
if there be unrighteousness with God, how shall he judge the
world? Rom. iii. 5, 6. " God will not do wickedly, neither
will the Almighty pervert judgment," Job xxiv. 12. How
despicable is a judge that wants innocence! As omniscience
fits God to be a judge, so holiness fits him to be a righteous
judge: " The Lord knoweth," that is, loveth "the way of the
righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish," Psal. i. 6.

[9.] If holiness be an eminent perfection of the Divine na-
ture, the Christian religion is of a Divine extraction. It disco-
vers the holiness of God, and forms the creature to a conformity

1 Placeus de Deitat. Christi in locum.

220 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

to him. It gives us a prospect of his nature, represents him
in the beauty of holiness, Psal. ex. 3, more than the whole glass
of the creation. It is in this evangelical glass the glory of the
Lord is beheld, and rendered amiable and imitable, 2 Cor. iii.
18. It is a doctrine according to godliness, 1 Tim. vi. 3, direct-
ing us to live the life of God; a life worthy of God, and worthy
of our first creation by his hand. It takes us off from ourselves,
fixes us upon a noble end, points our actions and the scope of
onr lives to God. It quells the monsters of sin, discountenances
the motes of wickedness; and it is no mean argument for the
divinity of it, that it sets us no lower a pattern for our imita-
tion, than the holiness of the Divine majesty. God is exalted
upon the throne of his holiness in it, and the creature advanced
to an image and resemblance of it: "Be ye holy; for I am
holy," 1 Pet. i. 16.

Use. (2.) Is for comfort. This attribute frowns upon lapsed
nature, but smiles in the restorations made by the gospel. God's
holiness, in conjunction with his justice, is terrible to a guilty
sinner; but now, in conjunction with his mercy, by the satis-
faction of Christ, it is sweet to a believing penitent. In the
first covenant, the purity of his nature was joined with the
rigours of his justice: in the second covenant, the purity of his
nature is joined with the sweetness and tenderness of his mercy.
In the one, justice flames against the sinner in the right of in-
jured holiness; in the other, mercy yearns towards a believer,
with the consent of righted holiness. To rejoice in the holiness
of God, is the true and genuine spirit of a renewed man: "My
heart rejoice th in the Lord;" what follows? "There is none
holy as the Lord," 1 Sam. ii. 1, 2. Some perfections of the
Divine nature are astonishing, some affrighting; but this may
fill us both with astonishment at it, and a joy in it.

[1.] By covenant we have an interest in this attribute, as
well as any other. In that clause of God's being our God,
entire God with all his glory, all his perfections are passed over
as a portion, and a gracious soul is brought into union with
God, as his God: not with a part of God, but with God in the
simplicity, extent, integrity of his nature; and therefore in this
attribute. And upon some account, it may seem more in this
attribute than in any other; for if he be our God, he is our God
in his life and glory, and therefore in his purity especially, with-
out which he could not live, he could not be happy and blessed.
Little comfort will it be to have a dead god or a vile god made
over to us: and as by this covenant he is our Father, so he
gives us his nature, and communicates his holiness in all his
dispensations; and in those that are severest, as well as those
that are sweetest; " But he" corrects us " for our profit, that
wo might be partakers of his holiness," Ileb. xii. 10. Not

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 221

simply, partakers of holiness, but of his holiness; to have a
portraiture of it in our nature, a model of it in our hearts, a
spark of the same nature with that immense splendour and
flame in himself. The holiness of a covenant soul is a resem-
blance of the holiness of God, and formed by it: as the picture
of the sun in a cloud is a fruit of his beams, and an image of
its author. The fulness of the perfection of holiness remains
in the nature of God, as the fulness of the light does in the sun;
yet there are transmissions of light from the sun to the moon,
and it is a light of the same nature both in the one and in the
other. The holiness of a creature is nothing else but the re-
flection of the Divine holiness upon it; and to make the crea-
ture capable of it, God takes various methods, according to his
covenant grace.

[2.] This attribute renders God a fit object for trust and de-
pendence. The notion of an unholy and unrighteous God, is
an uncomfortable idea of him, and beats off our hands from
laying any hold of him. It is upon this attribute the reputation
and honour of God in the world is built. What encourage-
ment can we have to believe him, or what incentives could we
have to serve him, without the lustre of this in his nature?
The very thought of an unrighteous God, is enough to drive
men at a great distance from him; as the honesty of a man
gives a reputation to his word; so does the holiness of God
give credit to his promise. It is by this he would have us stifle
our fears, and fortify our trust: "Fear not, thou worm Jacob,
and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy
Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel," Isa. xli. 14: he will be in
his actions, what he is in his nature. Nothing shall make him
defile his own excellency; unrighteousness is the ground of
mutability; but the promise of God does never fail, because the
rectitude of his nature does never languish; were his attributes
without the conduct of this, they would be altogether formi-
dable. As this is the glory of all his other perfections, so this
only renders him comfortable to a believing soul. Might we
not fear his power to crush us, his mercy to overlook us, his
wisdom to design against us, if this did not influence them?
What an oppression is power without righteousness in the
hand of a creature, destructive instead of protecting; the devil
is a mighty spirit, but not fit to be trusted, because he is an im-
pure spirit. When God would give us the highest security of
the sincerity of his intentions, he swears by this attribute, Psal.
lxxxix. 35; his holiness as well as his truth, is laid to pawn for
the security of his promise. As we make God the Judge be-
tween us and others, when we swear by him; so he makes his
holiness the judge between himself and his people, when he
swears by it.

Vol. II.— 29

222 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

It is this renders him fit to be confided in for the answer of
our prayers. This is the ground of his readiness to give: " If
ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts; — how much
more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to
them that ask him?" Matt. vii. 11. Though the holiness of
God be not mentioned, yet it is to be understood ; the emphasis
lies in those words, If you, being evil: God is, then, considered
in a disposition contrary to this, which can be nothing but his
righteousness. If you that are unholy, and have so much
corruption in you to render you cruel, can bestow upon your
children the good things they want, how much more shall God,
who is holy, and has nothing in him to check his mercifulness
to his creatures, grant the petitions of his suppliants! It was
this attribute edged the fiduciary importunity of the souls under
the altar, for the revenging their blood unjustly shed upon
earth: "How long, 0 Lord, holy and true, dost thou not —
avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" Rev. vi.
10. Let not thy holiness stand with folded arms, as careless of
the eminent sufferings of those that fear thee, we implore thee
by the holiness of thy nature, and the truth of thy word.

This renders him fit to be confided in, for the comfort of our
souls in a broken condition. The reviving the hearts of the
spiritually afliicted, is a part of the holiness of his nature: " Thus
saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose
name is holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also
that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the
humble," Isa. lvii. 15. He acknowledges himself the lofty One,
they might therefore fear he would not revive them; but he is
also the Holy One, and therefore he will refresh them; he is not
more lofty than he is holy: besides the argument of the immu-
tability of his promise, and the might of his power, here is the
holiness of his nature moving him to pity his drooping creature.
His promise is ushered in with the name of power, high and
lofty One, to bar their distrust of his strength; and with a de-
claration of his holiness, to check any despair of his will. There
is no ground to think I should be false to my word, or misem-
ploy my power, since that cannot be, because of the holiness
of my name and nature.

This renders him fit to be confided in for the maintenance
of grace, and protection of us against our spiritual enemies.
What our Saviour thought an argument in prayer, we may
well take as a ground of our confidence. In the strength of this
he puts up his suit, when in his mediatory capacity he inter-
cedes for the preservation of his people : " Holy Father, keep
through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that
they may be one, as we are," John xvii. 11. Holy Father, not
merciful Father, or powerful, or wise Father, but holy; and

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 223

verse 25, righteous Father. Christ pleads that attribute for the
performance of God's word, which was laid to pawn when he
passed his word: for it was by his holiness that he swore, that
his seed should endure for ever, and his throne as the sun be-
fore him, Psal. lxxxix. 36; which is meant of the perpetuity of
the covenant which he had made with Christ, and is also meant
of the preservation of the mystieal seed of David, and the per-
petuating his loving-kindness to them, ver. 29. 33. Grace is
an image of God's holiness, and therefore the holiness of God
is most proper to be used as an argument to interest and engage
him in the preservation of it. In the midst of church provo-
cations, he will not utterly extinguish, because he is the Holy
One in the midst of her, Hos. xi. 9; nor in the midst of judg-
ments will he condemn his people to death, because he is their
Holy One, Hab. i. 12; but their enemies shall be ordained for
judgment, and established for correction. One prophet assures
them in the name of the Lord, upon the strength of this perfec-
tion; and the other, upon the same ground, is confident of the
protection of the church, because of God's holiness engaged in
an inviolable covenant.

[3.] Since holiness is a glorious perfection of the nature
of God, he will certainly value every holy soul. It is of a
greater value with him than the souls of all men in the world
that are destitute of it; wicked men are the worst of vile-
nesses, and mere dross;1 purity, then, which is contrary to wick-
edness, must be the most precious thing in his esteem; he must
needs love that quality which he is most pleased with in him-
self, as a father looks with most delight upon the child which
is possessed with those dispositions he most values in his own
nature: " His countenance doth behold the upright," Psal. xi.
7. He looks upon them with a full and open face of favour,
with a countenance clear, unmasked and smiling, with a face
full of delight. Heaven itself is not such a pleasing object to
him, as the image of his own increated holiness in the created
holiness of men and angels: as a man esteems that most which
is most like him, of his own generation, more than a piece of
art, which is merely the product of his wit or strength. And
he must love holiness in the creature; he would not else love
his own image, and consequently would undervalue himself:
he despises the image the wicked bears, Psal. lxxiii. 20; but
he cannot disesteem his own stamp on the godly; he cannot but
delight in his own work, his choice work, the master-piece of
all his works, the new creation of things; that which is next
to himself, as being a Divine nature like himself, 2 Pet. i. 4.
When he overlooks strength, parts, knowledge, he cannot over-
look this; he sets' apart him that is godly for himself, Psal. iv.

' The vilest men, Psal. xii. 8.

224 oN THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

3, as a peculiar object to take pleasure in; he reserves such for
his own complacency, when he leaves the rest of the world to
the devil's power; he is choice of them above all his other
works, and will not let any have so great a propriety in them
as himself. If it be so dear to him here in its imperfect and
mixed condition, that he appropriates it as a peculiar object for
his own delight; how much more will the unspotted purity of
glorified saints be infinitely pleasing to him! So that he will
take less pleasure in the material heavens, than in such a soul.
Sin only is detestable to God, and when this is done away, the
soul becomes as lovely in his account, as before it was loath-
some.

[4.] It is comfort, upon this account, that God will perfect
holiness in every upright soul. We many times distrust God,
and despond in ourselves, because of the infinite holiness of the
Divine nature, and the sad corruptions in our own; but the
holiness of God engages him to the preservation of it, and con-
sequently to the perfection of it; as appears by our Saviour's
argument, John xvii. 11. "Holy Father, keep through thine
own name those whom thou hast given me;" to what end?
" that they may be one, as we are;" one with us, in the resem-
blance of purity. And the holiness of the soul is used as an
argument by the psalmist, Psal. lxxxvi. 2. " Preserve my soul,
for I am holy;" that is, I have an ardent desire to holiness;
thou hast separated me from the mass of the corrupted world;
preserve and perfect me with the assembly of the glorified
choir. The more holy any are, the more communicative they
are; God being most holy, is most communicative of that
which he most esteems in himself, and delights to see in his
creature; he is therefore more ready to impart his holiness to
them that beg for it, than to communicate his knowledge or his
power. Though he were holy, yet he let Adam fall, who
never petitioned his holiness to preserve him; he let him fall,
to declare the holiness of his own nature, which had wanted its
due manifestation without it; but since that cannot be declared
in a higher manner than it has been already in the death of
the Surety that bore our guilt, there is no fear he should cast
the work out of his hands, since the design of the permission
of man's apostasy, in the discovery of the perfections of his
nature, has been fully answered. The finishing the good work
he has begun, has a relation to the glory of Christ; and his
own glory in Christ to be manifested in the day of his appear-
ing, Phil, i. 6; wherein the glory, both of his own holiness, and
the holiness of the Mediator, are to receive their full manifesta-
tion. As it is a part of the holiness of Christ to sanctify his
church, till not a wrinkle or spot be left, Eph. v. 26, 21; so it is
the part of God not to leave that work imperfect, with which his

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 225

holiness has attempted a second time to beautify his creature.
He will not cease exalting this attribute, which is the be-
liever's by the new covenant, till he utters that applauding
speech of his own work, " Thou art all fair, my love; there is
no spot in thee,''' Cant. iv. 7.

Use (3.) Is for exhortation. Is holiness an eminent perfec-
tion of the Divine nature, then,

[1.] Let us get and preserve right and strong apprehensions
of this Divine perfection. Without a due sense of it, we can
never exalt God in our hearts; and the more distinct concep-
tions we have of this, and the rest of his attributes, the more
we glorify him. When Moses considered God as his strength
and salvation, he would exalt him, Exod. xv. 2; and he could
never break out in so admirable a doxology as that in the text>
without a deep sense of the glory of his purity which he speaks
of with so much admiration. Such a sense will be of use to us,

In promoting genuine convictions. A deep consideration
of the holiness of God cannot but be followed with a deep con-
sideration of our impure and miserable condition by reason of
sin; we cannot glance upon it without reflections upon our
own vileness. Adam no sooner heard the voice of a holy God
in the garden, but he considered his own nakedness with
shame and fear, Gen. iii. 10: much less can we fix our minds
upon it, but we must be touched with a sense of our own un-
cleanness. The clear beams of the sun discover that filthiness
in our garments and members, which was not visible in the
darkness of the night. Impure metals are discerned by com-
paring them with that which is pure and perfect in its kind.
The sense of guilt is the first natural result upon a sense of this
excellent perfection; and the sense of the imperfection of our
own righteousness is the next. Who can think of it, and re-
flect upon himself as an object fit for Divine love ? Who can
have a due thought of it without regarding himself as stubble
before a consuming fire? Who can, without a confusion of
heart and face, glance upon that pure eye, which beholds with
detestation the foul motes as well as the filthier and bigger
spots? When Isaiah saw his glory, and heard how highly the
angels exalted God for this perfection, he was in a cold sweat,
ready to swoon, till a seraph with a coal from the altar, both
purged and revived him, Isa. vi. 5 — 7. They are sound and
genuine convictions, which have the prospect of Divine purity
for their immediate spring, and not a foresight of our own
misery; when it is not the punishment we have deserved, but
the holiness we have offended, most grates our hearts. Such
convictions are the first rude draughts of the Divine image in
our spirits; and grateful to God, because they are an acknow-
ledgment of the glory of this attribute, and the first mark of

226 ON TfIE HOLINESS OF GOD.

honour given to it by the creature. Those that never had a
sense of their own vileness, were always destitute of a sense
of God's holiness. And by the way we may observe, that
those that scoff at any for hanging down the head under the
consideration and conviction of sin, (as is too usual with the
world,) scoff at them for having deeper apprehensions of the
purity of God than themselves, and consequently make a mock
of the holiness of God, which is the ground of those convic-
tions; a sense of this would prevent such a damnable reproach-
ing.

A sense of this will render us humble in the possession of
the greatest holiness a creature were capable of. We are apt
to be proud with the pharisee, when we look upon others' wal-
lowing in the mire of base and unnatural lusts; but let any
clap their wings, if they can, in a vain boasting and exultation,
when they view the holiness of God. What torch, if it had
reason, would be proud and swagger in its own light, if it com-
pared itself with the sun? Who can stand before this holy
Lord God? is the just reflection of the holiest person, as it was
of those, 1 Sam. vi. 20, that had felt the marks of his jealousy
after their looking into the ark, though it is likely out of affec-
tion to it and triumphant joy at its return. When did the
angels testify, by the covering of their faces, their weakness to
bear the lustre of his majesty, but when they beheld his glory?
when did they signify by their covering their feet the shame
of their own vileness, but when their hearts were fullest of the
applauclings of this perfection? Isa. vi. 2, 3. Though they
found themselves without spot, yet not with such a holiness
that they could appear either with their faces or feet unveiled
and unmasked in the presence of God. Does the immense
splendour of this attribute engender shaming reflections in
those pure spirits? What will it, what should it do in us, that
dwell in houses of clay, and creep up and down with that clay
upon our backs, and too much of it in our hearts? The stars
themselves, which appear beautiful in the night, are masked
at the awakening of the sun. What a dim light is that of a
glow-worm to that of the sun ! The apprehensions of this made
the elders humble themselves in the midst of their glory, by
casting down their crowns before his throne, Rev. iv. 8. 10; a
metaphor taken from the triumphing generals among the
Romans, who hung up their victorious laurels in the capitol,
dedicating them to their gods, acknowledging them their supe-
riors in strength, and authors of their victory. This self-empti-
ness at the consideration of Divine purity, is the note of the
true church represented by the twenty-four elders, and a note
of a true member of the church; whereas boasting of perfec-
tion and merit is the property of the anti-christian tribe, that

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 227

have mean thoughts of this adorable perfection, and think
themselves more righteous than the unspotted angels. What a
self-annihilation is there in a good man when the sense of Di-
vine purity is most lively in him! .yea, how detestable is he to
himself! There is as little proportion between the holiness of
the Divine majesty, and that of the most righteous creature, as
there is between a nearness of a person that stands upon a
mountain to the sun, and of him that beholds him in a vale:
one is nearer than the other, but it is an advantage not to be
boasted of, in regard of the vast distance that is between the
sun and the elevated spectator.

This would make us full of an affectionate reverence in all
our approaches to God. By this perfection God is rendered
venerable, and fit to be reverenced by his creature; and mag-
nificent thoughts of it in the creature would awaken to an
actual reverence of the Divine majesty. " Holy and reverend
is his name," Psal. cxi. 9. A good opinion of this would en-
gender in us a sincere respect towards him; we should then
"serve the Lord with fear," as the expression is, Psal. ii. 11,
that is, be afraid to cast any thing before him that may offend
the eyes of his purity. Who would venture rashly and garishly
into the presence of an eminent moralist, or of a righteous king
upon his throne? The fixedness of the angels arose from the
continual prospect of this. What if we had been with Isaiah
when he saw the vision, and beheld him in the same glory, and
the heavenly choir in their reverential posture in the service of
God; would it not have barred our wanderings, and staked us
down to our duty? Would not the fortifying an idea of it in
our minds produce the same effect? It is for want of this we
carry ourselves so loosely and unbecomingly in the Divine pre-
sence, with the same, or meaner affections than those where-
with-we stand before some vile creature, that is our superior
in the world; as though a piece of filthy flesh were more valua-
ble than this perfection of the Divinity. How does the Psalmist
double his exhortation to sing praise to God! Psal. xlvii. 6.
" Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises unto our King,
sing praises," because of his majesty, and the purity of his
dominion: and verse S, " God reigneth over the heathen: God
sitteth upon the throne of his holiness." How would this ele-
vate us in praise, and prostrate us in prayer, when we praise
and pray with an understanding and insight of that nature we
bless or implore! as he speaks, verse 7, " Sing ye praises with
understanding." The holiness of God in his government and
dominion, the holiness of his nature, and the holiness of his
precepts, should beget in us a humble respect in our approaches.
The more we grow, in a sense of this, the more shall we ad-

228 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

vance in the true performance of all our duties.1 Those nations
which adored the sun, had they at first seen his brightness
wrapped and masked in a cloud, and paid a veneration to it,
how would their adorations have mounted to a greater point,
after they had seen it in its full brightness, shaking off those
veils, and chasing away the mists before it! what a profound
reverence would they have paid it, when they beheld it in its
glory and meridian brightness! Our reverence to God in all our
addresses to him will arrive to greater degrees, if every act of
duty be ushered in and seasoned with the thoughts of God as
sitting upon a throne of holiness: we shall have a more be-
coming sense of our own vileness, a greater ardour in his ser-
vice, a deeper respect in his presence, if our understanding be
more cleared, and possessed with the notions of this perfection.
Thus take a view of God in this part of his glory, before you
fall down before his throne, and assure yourselves you will find
your hearts and services quickened with a new and lively spirit.
A due sense of this perfection in God would produce in us
a fear of God, and arm us against temptations and sin.
What made the heathen so wanton and loose but the repre-
sentations of their gods as vicious? Who would stick at adul-
teries and more prodigious lusts, that can take a pattern for
them from the person he adores for a deity? Upon which ac-
count Plato would have poets banished from his commonwealth,
because by dressing up their gods in wanton garbs in their
poems, they encouraged wickedness in the people. But if the
thoughts of God's holiness were impressed upon us, we should
regard sin with the same eye, mark it with the same detestation
in our measures, as God himself does. So far as we are sen-
sible of the Divine purity, we should account sin vile as it de-
serves; we should hate it entirely, without a grain of love to
it, and hate it perpetually. "Through thy precepts I get un-
derstanding; therefore I hate every false way," Psal. cxix.
104. He looks into God's statute-book, and thereby arrives to
an understanding of the purity of his nature, whence his ha-
tred of iniquity commenced. This would govern our motion,
check our vices; it would make us tremble at the hissing of a
temptation: when a corruption did but peep out, and put forth
its head, a look to the Divine purity would be attended with a
fresh convoy of strength to resist it. There is no such fortifi-
cation as to be wrapped up in a sense of this: this would fill
us with an awe of God; we should be ashamed to admit any
filthy thing into us, which we know is detestable to his pure
eye. As the approach of a grave and serious man makes
children hasten their trifles out of the way, so would a consi-

1 Amyrald. Moral, tom. 5. p. 462.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 229

deration of this attribute make us cast away our idols, and
fling away our ridiculous thoughts and designs.

A due sense of this perfection, would i)ifla?ne us with a
vehement desire to be conformed to him. All our desires
would be ardent to regulate themselves according to this pat-
tern of holiness and goodness, which is not to be equalled ; the
contemplating it as it shines forth in the face of Christ, will
transform us into the same image, 2 Cor. hi. 18. Since our
lapsed state, we cannot behold the holiness of God in itself
without affrightment; nor is it an object of imitation, but as
tempered in Christ to our view. When we cannot without
blinding ourselves look upon the sun in his brightness, we may
behold it through a coloured glass, whereby the lustre of it is
moderated, without dazzling our eyes. The sense of it will
furnish us with a greatness of mind, that little things will be
contemned by us: motives of a greater alloy would have little
influence upon us; we should have the highest motives to
every duty, and motives of the same strain which influence the
angels above. It would change, us, not only into an angelical
nature, but a Divine nature: we should act like men of another
sphere; as if we had received our original in another world,
and seen with angels the ravishing beauties of heaven. How
little would the mean employments of the world sink us into
dirt and mud! How often has the meditation of the courage of
a valiant man, or acuteness and industry of a learned person,
spurred on some men to an imitation of them, and transformed
them into the same nature! Just as the looking upon the sun
imprints an image of the sun upon our eye, that we seem to
behold nothing but the sun a while after. The view of the
Divine purity would fill us with a holy generosity to imitate
him, more than the examples of the best men upon earth. It
was a saying of a heathen, that if virtue were visible, it would
kindle a noble flame of love to it in the heart, by its ravishing
beauty. Shall the infinite purity of the Author of all virtue
come short of the strength of a creature? Can we not render
that visible to us by frequent meditation, which though it be
invisible in his nature, is made visible in his law, in his ways,
in his Son? It would make us ready to obey him, since we
know he cannot command any thing that is sinful, but what is
holy, just, and good: it would put all our affections in their due
place, elevate them above the creature, and subject them to
the Creator.

It would make us patient and contented under all God's
dispensations. All penal evils are the fruits of his holiness, as
he is Judge and Governor of the world: he is not an arbitrary
Judge, nor is any sentence pronounced, nor does any warrant
for execution issue from him, but what bears upon it a stamp
Vol. II.— 30

230 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

of the righteousness of his nature; he does nothing by passion
or unrighteousness, but according to the eternal law of his own
unstained nature, which is the rule to him in his works, the
basis and foundation of his throne and sovereign dominion.
"Justice," or righteousness, "and judgment are the habitation
of thy throne," Psal. lxxxix. 14; upon these his sovereign
power is established: so that there can be no just complaint or
indictment brought against any of his proceedings with men.
How does our Saviour, who had the highest apprehensions of
God's holiness, justify God in his deepest distresses, when he
cried and was not answered in the particular he desired, in
that prophetic psalm of him, Psal. xxii. 1 — 3. I cry day and
night, but thou hearest not. Thou seemest to be deaf to all my
petitions, afar off from the words of my roaring: but thou art
holy. I cast no blame upon thee: all thy dealings are squared
by thy holiness, this is the only law to thee; in this I acquiesce.
It is part of thy holiness to hide thy face from me, to show
thereby thy detestation of sin. Our Saviour adores the Divine
purity in his sharpest agony, and a like sense of it would guide
us in the same steps to acknowledge and glorify it in our
greatest desertions and afflictions; especially since as they are
the fruit of the holiness of his nature, so they are the means to
impart to us clearer stamps of holiness, according to that in
himself, which is the original copy, Heb. xii. 10. He melts us
down as gold, to fit us for the receiving a new impression, to
mortify the affections of the flesh, and clothe us with the graces
of his Spirit. The due sense of this would make us to submit
to his stroke, and to wait upon him for a good issue of his
dealings.

[2.] Is holiness a perfection of the Divine nature? is it the
glory of the Deity? Then let us glorify this holiness of God.
Moses glorifies it in the text, and glorifies it in a song, which
was a copy for all ages. The whole corporation of seraphim
have their mouths filled with the praises of it. The saints,
whether militant on earth, or triumphant in heaven, are to con-
tinue the same acclamation, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Al-
mighty," Rev. iv. S. Neither angels nor glorified spirits exalt
at the same rate the power which formed them creatures, nor
goodness which preserves them in a blessed immortality, as
they do holiness, which they bear some beams of in their own
nature, and whereby they are capacitated to stand before his
throne. Upon the account of this, a debt of praise is demanded
of all rational creatures by the psalmist; "Let them praise thy
great and terrible name; for it is holy," Psal. xcix. 3. Not so
much for the greatness of his majesty, or the treasures of his,
justice; but as they are considered in conjunction with his
holiness, which renders them beautiful; "for it is holy."

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

231

Grandeur and majesty simply in themselves are not objects of
praise, nor do they merit the acclamations of men, when desti-
tute of righteousness: this only renders every thing else adora-
ble; and this adorns the Divine greatness with an amiableness,
" Great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee," Isa.
xii. 6, and makes his might worthy of praise, Luke i. 49. In
honouring this, which is the soul and spirit of all the rest, we
give a glory to all the perfections which constitute and beautify
his nature: and without the glorifying of this, we glorify no-
thing of them, though we should extol every other single attri-
bute a thousand times. He values no other adoration of his
creatures, unless this be interested, nor accepts any thing as a
glory from them: " I will be sanctified in them that come nigh
me, and — I will be glorified," Lev. x. 3. As if he had said,
in manifesting my name to be holy, you truly, you only honour
me. And as the Scripture seldom speaks of this perfection
without a particular emphasis, it teaches us not to think of it
without a special elevation of heart : by this act only, while
we are on earth, can we join concert with the angels in hea-
ven; he that does not. honour it, delight in it, and in the medi-
tation of it, has no resemblance to it; he has none of the image,
that delights not in the original. Every thing of God is glori-
ous, but this most of all. If he built the world principally for
any thing, it was for the communication of his goodness, and
display of his holiness. He formed the rational creature to
manifest his holiness in that law whereby he was to be
governed. Then deprive not God of the design of his own
glory.

We honour this attribute,

When we make it the ground of our love to God. Not be-
cause he is gracious to us, but holy in himself. As God honours
it, in loving himself for it, we should honour it, by pitching our
affection upon him chiefly for it. What renders God amiable
to himself, should render him lovely to all his creatures: " The
Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' sake," Isa. xlii. 21.
If the hatred of evil be the immediate result of a love to God,
then the peculiar object or term of our love to God, must be
that perfection which stands in direct opposition to the hatred
of evil. " Ye that love the Lord, hate evil," Psal. xcvii. 10.
When we honour his holiness in every stamp and impression
of it; his law, not principally because of its usefulness to us,
or its accommodateness to the order of the world, but for its
innate purity ; and his people, not for our interest in them, so
much as for bearing upon them this glittering mark of the Deity,
we honour then the purity of the Lawgiver, and the excellency
of the Sanctifier.

We honour it, when we regard chiefly the illustrious appear-

232 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

ance of this in his judgments in the world. In a case of tem-
poral judgment, Moses celebrates it in the text: in a case of
spiritual judgments, the angels applaud it in Isaiah. All his
severe proceedings are nothing but the strong breathings of this
attribute. Purity is the flash of his revenging sword. If he
did not hate evil, his vengeance would not reach the committers
of it. He is a refiner's fire in the day of his anger, Mai. iii. 2.
By his separating judgments, he takes away the wicked of the
earth like dross, Psal. cxix. 119. How is his holiness honoured,
when we take notice of his sweeping out the rubbish of the
world: how he suits punishment to sin, and discovers his ha-
tred of the matter and circumstances of the evil, in the matter
and circumstances of the judgment. This perfection is legible
in every stroke of his sword; we honour it when we read the
syllables of it, and not by standing amazed only at the great-
ness and severity of the blow, when we read how holy he is in
his most terrible dispensations. For as in them God magnifies
the greatness of his power, so he sanctifies himself; that is,
declares the purity of his nature as a revenger of all impiety.
" And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood ;
and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the
many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great
hail-stones, fire and brimstone. Thus will I magnify myself,
and sanctify myself," Ezek. xxxviii. 22, 23.

We honour this attribute, when we take notice of it in every
accomplishment of his promise, and every grant of a mercy.
His truth is but a branch of his righteousness, a slip from this
root. He is glorious in holiness in the account of Moses, be-
cause he led forth his people whom he had redeemed, Exod.
xv. 13; his people by a covenant with their fathers, being the
God of Moses, the God of Israel, and the God of their fathers,
verse 2. My God, and my father's God, I will exalt thee. For
what? for his goodness to his promise. The holiness of God,
which Mary magnifies, Luke i. 49, is summed up in this, the
help he afforded his servant Israel in the " remembrance of his
mercy; as he spake to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed
for ever," ver. 54, 55. The certainty of his covenant mercy
depends upon an unchangeableness of his holiness. What are
sure mercies, Isa. lv. 3, are holy mercies in the Septuagint; and
in Acts xiii. 34, which makes that translation canonical. His
nearness to answer us when we call upon him for such mercies,
is a fruit of the holiness of his name and nature: " The Lord
is — holy in all his works; the Lord is nigh unto all them that
call upon him," Psal. clxv. 17. Hannah, after a return of
prayer, sets a particular mark upon this in her song, " There is
none holy as the Lord," 1 Sam. ii. 2; separated from all dross,
firm to his covenant, and righteous in it to his suppliants that

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 233

confide in him, and plead his word. When we observe the
workings of this in every return of prayer, we honour it; it is
a sign the mercy is really a return of prayer, and not a mercy
of course, bearing upon it only the characters of a common
providence. This was the perfection David would bless for the
catalogue of mercies in Psal. ciii. 1 : " Bless his (holy) name."
Certainly one reason why sincere prayer is so delightful to him,
is because it puts him upon the exercise of this his beloved
perfection, which he so much delights to honour. Since God
acts in all those as the Governor of the world, we honour him
not, unless we take notice of that righteousness which fits him
for a Governor, and is the inward spring of all his motions.
" Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right," Gen. xviii. 25.
It was his design in his pity to Israel, as well as the calamities
he intended against the heathens, to be sanctified in them; that
is, declared holy in his merciful as well as his judicial proce-
dure, Ezek. xxxvi. 21. 23. Hereby God credits his righteous-
ness, which seemed to be forgotten by the one, and contemned
by the other;' he removes by this all suspicion of any unfaith-
fulness in him.

We honour this attribute, when we trust his covenant and
promise against outward appearances. Thus our Saviour, in
the prophecy of him, Psal. xxii. 2 — 4, when God seemed to
bar up the gates of his palace against the entry of any more
petitions, this attribute proves the support of the Redeemer's
soul; " But thou art holy, 0 thou that inhabitest the praises of
Israel." As it refers to what goes before, it has been twice
explained; as it refers to what follows, it is a ground of trust.
Thou inhabitest the praises of Israel; thou hast had the praises
of Israel for many ages for thy holiness. How? " Our fathers
trusted in thee — and thou didst deliver them." They honoured
thy holiness by their trust, and thou diclst honour their faith by
a deliverance; thou always hadsta purity that would not shame
nor confound them. I will trust in thee as thou art holy, and
expect the breaking out of this attribute for my good as well
as my predecessors; "Our fathers trusted in thee," &c.

We honour this attribute, when we show a greater affection
to the marks of his holiness in times of the greatest contempt
of it. As the Psalmist, Psal. cxix. 126, 127, "They have made
void thy law, therefore I love thy commandments above gold."
While they spurn at the purity of thy law, I will value it above
the gold they possess; I will esteem it as gold, because others
count it as dross. By their scorn of it, my love to it shall be
the warmer, and my hatred of iniquity shall be sharper: the
disdain of others should inflame us with a zeal and fortitude to
appear in the behalf of his despised honour. We honour this

1 Sanct. in loc.

234 0N THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

holiness many other ways; by preparation for otir addresses to
him out of a sense of his purity, when we imitate it: and as
he honours us by teaching us his statues, Psal. cxix. 135; so
we honour him by learning and observing them; when we beg
of him to show himself a refiner of us, to make us more con-
formable to him in holiness, and bless him for any communi-
cation of it to us, it renders us beautiful and lovely in his sight.

To conclude; to honour it is the way to engage it for us: to
give it the glory of what it has done by the arm of power for
our rescue from sin, and beating down our corruptions at his
feet, is the way to see more of its marvellous works, and be-
hold a clearer brightness. As unthankfulness makes him with-
draw his grace, Rom. i. 21. 24, so glorifying him causes him
to impart it. God honours men in the same way they honour
him: when we honour him by acknowledging his purity, he
will honour us by communicating of it to us. This is the way
to derive a greater excellency to our souls.

[3.] Since holiness is an eminent perfection of the Divine
nature, let us labour after a conformity to God in this perfec-
tion. The nature of God is presented to us in the Scripture,
both as a pattern to imitate, and a motive to persuade the crea-
ture to holiness, I John iii. 3; Matt. v. 48; Lev. xi. 44; 1 Pet.
i. 15, 16. Since it is therefore the nature of God, the more our
natures are beautified with it, the more like we are to the Di-
vine nature. It is not the pattern of angels, nor archangels,
that our Saviour or his apostle proposes for our imitation; but
the original of all purity, God himself, the same that created
us, to be imitated by us. Nor is an equal degree of purity en-
joined us, though we are to be pure, and perfect, and merciful
as God is, yet not essentially so; for that would be to command
us an impossibility in itself; as much as to order us to cease to
be creatures, and commence gods. No creature can be essen-
tially holy but by participation from the chief Fountain of holi-
ness; but we must have the same kind of holiness, the same
truth of holiness. As a short line may be as straight as an-
other, though it parallel it not in the immense length of it, a
copy may have the likeness of the original, though not the
same perfection. We cannot be good, without eyeing some
exemplar of goodness as the pattern. No pattern is so suita-
ble as that which is the highest goodness and purity. That
limner that would draw the most excellent piece, fixes his eyes
upon the most perfect pattern. He that would be a good ora-
tor, or poet, or artificer, considers some person most excellent
in each kind, as the object of his imitation. Who so fit as God
to be viewed as the pattern of holiness, in our intendment of and
endeavour after holiness ? The stoics, one of the best sects of
philosophers, advised their disciples to pitch upon some emi-

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 235

nent example of virtue, according to which to form their lives,
as Socrates, &c. But true holiness does not only endeavour to
live the life of a good man, but chooses to live a Divine life.
As before the man was alienated from the life of God, Eph. iv.
18, so upon his return he aspires after the life of God. To en-
deavour to be like a good man, is to make one image like
another, to set our clocks by other clocks, without regarding
the sunj but true holiness consists in a likeness to the most
exact sampler. God being the first purity, is the rule as well
as the spring of all purity in the creature, the chief and first
object of imitation. We disown ourselves to be his creatures,
if we breathe not after a resemblance to him in what he is im-
itable. There was in man, as created according to God's image,
a natural appetite to resemble God: it was at first planted in
him by the Author of his nature. The devil's temptation of
him by that motive to transgress the law, had been as an arrow
shot against a brazen wall, had there not been a desire of some
likeness to his Creator engraven upon him, Gen. iii. 5: it would
have had no more influence upon him, than it could have had
upon a mere animal. But man mistook the term; he would
have been like God in knowledge, whereas he should have
affected a greater resemblance of him in purity. 0 that we
could exemplify God in our nature ! Precepts may instruct us
more, but examples affect us more; one directs us, but the
other attracts us. What can be more attractive of our imita-
tion than that which is the original of all purity both in men
and angels?

This conformity to him consists in an imitation of him.
In his law. The purity of his nature was first visible in this
glass; hence it is called a holy law, Rom. vii. 12; a pure law,
Psal. xix. 8; holy and pure, as it is a ray of the pure nature of
the Lawgiver. When our lives are a comment upon his law,
they are expressive of his holiness. We conform to his holi-
ness, when we regulate ourselves by his law, as it is a transcript
of his holiness: we do not imitate it, when we do a thing in
the matter of it agreeable to that holy rule, but when we do it
with respect to the purity of the Lawgiver beaming in it. If
it be agreeable to God's will, and convenient for some design
of our own, and we do any thing only with a respect to that
design, we make not God's holiness discovered in the law our
rule, but our own conveniency; it is not a conformity to God,
but a conformity of our actions to self; as in abstinence from
intemperate courses, not because the holiness of God in his law
has prescribed it, but because the health of our bodies, or some
noble contentments of life, require it; then it is not God's
holiness that is our rule, but our own security, conveniency, or
something else which we make a god to ourselves.

236 0N THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

It must be a real conformity to the law; our holiness should
shine as really in the practice, as God's purity does in the pre-
cept. God has not a pretence of purity in his nature, but a
reality. It is not only a sudden boiling up of an admiration of
him, or a starting wish to be like him, from some sudden im-
pression upon the fancy, (which is a mere temporary blaze,)
but a settled temper of soul, loving every thing that is like him,
doing things out of a firm desire to resemble his purity in the
copy he has set; not a resting in negatives, but aspiring to
positives. Holy and harmless are distinct things: they were
distinct qualifications in our High Priest, in his obedience to the
law, Heb. vii. 26; so they must be in us.

In his Christ. As the law is the transcript, so Christ is the
image of his holiness. The glory of God is too dazzling to be
beheld by us: the acute eye of an angel is too weak to look
upon that bright sun without covering his face. We are much
too "weak to take our measures from that purity which is infinite
in his nature. But he has made his Son like us, that by the
imitation of him in that temper, and shadow of human flesh,
we may arrive to a resemblance of him, 2 Cor. iii. 18. Then
there is a conformity to him, when that which Christ did is
drawn in lively colours in the soul of a Christian; when as he
died upon the cross, we die to our sins; as he rose from the
grave, we rise from our lusts; as he ascended on high, we mount
our souls thither; when we express in our lives what shined in
his, and exemplify in our hearts what he acted in the world,
and become with him, even as he was, separate from sinners.
The holiness of God in Christ is our ultimate pattern. As we
are not only to believe in Christ, but by Christ in God, John
xiv. 1 ; so we are not only to imitate Christ, but the holiness of
God as discovered in Christ.

And to enforce this upon us, let us consider,
It is this only wherein he commands our imitation of him.
We are not commanded to be mighty and wise, as God is
mighty and wise; but, " Be holy, as I am holy." The decla-
rations of his power are to enforce our subjection; those of his
wisdom to encourage our direction by him; but this only to
attract our imitation. When he says, I am holy, the immediate
inference he makes is, Be ye so too, which is not the proper
instruction from any other perfection.1 Man was created by
Divine power, and harmonized by Divine wisdom, but not after
them, or according to them, as the true image ; this was the
prerogative of Divine holiness, to be the pattern of his rational
creature, Eph. iv. 24; Col. iii. 10: wisdom and power were
subservient to this, the one as the pencil, the other as the hand
that moved it. The condition of a creature is too mean to have

1 In this, says Plato, God is \v fAvan ■Trxpdfuy/u*..

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 237

the communications of the Divine essence, the true impressions
of his righteousness and goodness we are only capable of. It
is only in those moral perfections we are said to resemble God.
The devils, those impure and mined spirits, are nearer to him
in strength and knowledge than we are; yet in regard of that
natural and intellectual perfection, never counted like him, but
at the greatest distance from him, because at the greatest dis-
tance from his purity. God values not a natural might, nor
an acute understanding, nor vouchsafes such perfections the
glorious title of that of his image. Plutarch says, God is angry
with those that imitate his thunder or lightning, his works of
majesty, but delighted with those that imitate his virtue.1 In
this only we can never incur any reproof from him, but for
falling short of him and his glory. Had Adam endeavoured
after an imitation of this, instead of that of Divine knowledge,
he had escaped his fall and preserved his standing; and had
Lucifer wished himself like God in this, as well as his domin-
ion, he had still been a glorious angel, instead of being now a
ghastly devil. To reach after a union with the Supreme Being
in regard of holiness, is the only generous and commendable
ambition.

This, too, is the prime way of honouring God. We do not
so glorify God by elevated admirations, or eloquent expressions,
or pompous services of him, as when we aspire to a conversing
with him with unstained spirits, and live to him in living like
him. The angels are not called holy for applauding his purity,
but conforming to it. The more perfect any creature is in the
rank of beings, the more is the Creator honoured; as it is more
for the honour of God to create an angel or man, than a mere
animal; because there are in such clearer characters of Divine
power and goodness, than in those that are inferior. The more
perfect any creature is morally, the more God is glorified by
that creature; it is a real declaration that God is the best and
most amiable Being; that nothing besides him is valuable, and
worthy to be the object of our imitation. It is a greater hon-
ouring of him, than the highest acts of devotion, and the most
religious bodily exercise, or the singing this song of Moses in
the text with a triumphant spirit; as it is more the honour of a
father to be imitated in his virtues by his son, than to have all
the fawning commendations by the tongue or pen of a vicious
and debauched child. By this we honour him in that perfec-
tion which is dearest to him, and counted by him as the chiefest
glory of his nature. God seems to accept the glorifying this
attribute, as if it were a real addition to that holiness which is
infinite in his nature, and because infinite, cannot admit of any
increase: and therefore the word sanctified is used instead of

1 Eugub. Inde Perenni Philoso. lib. 6. cap. G.

Vol. II.— 31

238 ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

glorified, Isa. viii. 13: "Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself;
and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread." And
Isa. xxix. 23: "They shall sanctify the Holy One of Jacob,
and shall fear the God of Israel." This sanctification of God
is by the fear of him, which signifies, in the language of the
Old Testament, a reverence of him, and a righteousness before
him. He does not say, when he would have his power or
wisdom glorified, Empower me, or, Make me wise; but when
he would have holiness glorified by the creature, it is, Sanctify
me; that is, manifest the purity of my nature by the holiness
of your lives. But he expresses it in such a term, as if it were
an addition to this infinite perfection; so acceptable it is to him,
as if it were a contribution from his creature for the enlarging
an attribute so pleasing to him, and so glorious in his eye. It
is as much as in the creature lies, a preserving the life of God,
since this perfection is his life; and that he would as soon part
with his life as part with his purity. It keeps up the reputa-
tion of God in the world, and attracts others to a love of him;
whereas unworthy carriages defame God in the eyes of men,
and bring up an ill report of him, as if he were such a one as
those that profess him, and walk unsuitably to their profession,
appear to be.

This is the excellency and beauty of a creature. The title
of beauty is given to it in Psal. ex. 3; "beauties," in the plural
number, as comprehending in it all other beauties whatsoever.
"What is a Divine excellency cannot be a creature's deformity:
the natural beauty of it is a representation of the Divinity;
and a holy man ought to esteem himself excellent, it being
such in his measure as his God is, and puts his principal feli-
city in the possession of the same purity in truth. This is the
refined complexion of the angels that stand before his throne.
The devils lost their comeliness when they fell from it. It was
the honour of the human nature of our Saviour, not only to be
united to the Deity, but to be sanctified by it. He was fairer
than all the children of men, because he had a holiness above
the children of men : grace was poured into his lips, Psal. xlv.-
2. It was the jewel of the reasonable nature in paradise: con-
formity to God was man's original happiness in his created
state, and what was naturally so, cannot but be immutably so
in its own nature. The beauty of every copied thing consists
in its likeness to the original: every thing hath more of loveli-
ness as it has greater impressions of its first pattern. In this
regard holiness has more of beauty on it than the whole crea-
tion, because it partakes of a greater excellency of God than
the sun, moon, and stars. . No greater glory can be, than to be
a conspicuous ^nd visible image of the invisible, and holy, and
blessed God. As this is the splendour of all the Divine attri-

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 239

butes, so it is the flower of all a Christian's graces, the crown
of all religion: it is the glory of the Spirit. In this regard the
king's daughter is said to be all glorious within, Psal. xlv. 13.
It is more excellent than the soul itself, since the greatest soul
is but a deformed piece without it, (a diamond without lustre.) :
What are the noble faculties of the soul without it, but as a
curious rusty watch, a delicate heap of disorder and confusion?
It is impossible there can be beauty, where there is a multi-
tude of spots and wrinkles that blemish a countenance, Eph.
v. 27. It can never be in its true brightness, but when it is
perfect in purity, when it regains what it was possessed of by
creation, and dispossessed of by the fall, and recovers its primi-
tive temper. We are not so beautiful by being the work of
God, as by having a stamp of God upon us. Worldly great-
ness may make men honourable in the sight of creeping worms.
Soft lives, ambitious reaches, luxurious pleasures, and a pomp-
ous religion, render no man excellent and noble in the sight of
God: this is not the excellency and nobility of the Deity which
we are bound to resemble; other lines of a Divine image must
be drawn in us to render Us truly excellent.

It is our life. What is the life of God, is truly the life of a
rational creature. 2 The life of the body consists not in the
perfection of its members, and the integrity of its organs; these
remain when the body becomes a carcass; but in the presence
of the soul, and its vigorous animation of every part, to per-
form the distinct offices belonging to each of them. The life
of the soul consists not in its being, or spiritual substance, or
the excellency of its faculties of understanding and will, but in
the moral and becoming operations of them. The spirit is only
life because of righteousness, Rom. viii. 10. The faculties are
turned by it, to acquit themselves in their functions, according
to the will of God; the absence of this does. not only deform
the soul, but in a sort annihilate it, in regard to its true essence
and end: grace gives a Christian being, and a want of it is the
want of a true being, 1 Cor. xv. 10. When Adam divested
himself of his original righteousness, he came under the force
of the threatening, in regard of a spiritual death: every person
is morally dead while he lives an unholy life, 1 Tim. v. 6.
What life is to the body, that is righteousness to the spirit; and
the greater measure of holiness it has, the more of life it has,
because it is in a greater nearness, and partakes more fully of
the Fountain of Life. It is not that the most worthy life,
which God makes most account of, without which his life
could not be a pleasant and blessed life, but a life worse than
death? What a miserable life is that of the men of the world,
that are carried with greedy inclinations to all manner of un-
' Vaughan, p. 4, 5. 2 Amyrald, in Heb. p. 101, 102,

240 OJS THE HOLINESS OF GOIX

righteousness, whither their interests or their lusts invite them!
The most beautiful body is a carcass, and the most honourable
person has but a brutish life, Psal. xlix. 20: miserable creatures
when their life shall be extinct, without a Divine rectitude,
when all other things will vanish as the shadows of the night
at the appearance of the sun.

Holiness is our life.

It is this only fits us for communion with God. Since it is
our beauty and our life, without it what communion can an
excellent God have with deformed creatures, a living God
with dead creatures? Without holiness none shall see God,
Heb. xii. 14. The creature must be stripped of his unrighte-
ousness, or God of his purity, before they can come together.
Likeness is the ground of communion and of delight in it; the
opposition between God and unholy souls, is as great as that
between light and darkness, 1 John i. 6. Divine fruition is
not so much by a union of presence, as a union of nature.
Heaven is not so much an outward, as an inward life; the
foundation of glory is laid in grace; a resemblance to God is
our vital happiness, without which the vision of God would
not be so much as a cloudy and shadowy happiness, but rather
a torment than a felicity; unless we be of a like nature to God,
we cannot have a pleasing fruition of him. Some philosophers
think, that if our bodies were of the same nature with the
heavens, of an ethereal substance, the nearness to the sun
would cherish, not scorch us. Were we partakers of a Divine
nature, we might enjoy God with delight: whereas remaining
in our unlikeness to him, we cannot think of him and approach
to him without terror. As soon as sin had stripped man of the
image of God, he was an exile from the comfortable presence
of God, unworthy of God to hold any correspondence with.
He can no more delight in a defiled person, than a man can
take a toad into intimate converse with him; he would hereby
discredit his own nature, and justify our impurity. The holi-
ness of a creature only prepares him for an eternal conjunction
with God in glory. Enoch's walking with God, was the cause
of his being so soon wafted to the place full of a fruition of
him. He has as much delight in such, as in heaven itself; one
is his habitation as well as the other: the one is his habitation
of glory, and the other is the house of his pleasure: if he dwell
in Zion, it must be a holy mountain, Joel iii. 17; and the
members of Zion must be upheld in their rectitude and integ-
rity, before they be set before the face of God for ever, Psal.
xli. 12. Such are styled his jewels, his portion, as if he lived
upon them, as a man upon his inheritance. As God cannot
delight in us, so neither can we delight in God, without it.
We must purify ourselves as he is pure, if we expect to see

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOH. 241

him as he is in the comfortable glory and beauty of his nature,

1 John iii. 2, 3; else the sight of God would be terrible and
troublesome. We cannot be satisfied with the likeness of God
at the resurrection, unless we have a righteousness wherewith
to behold his face, Psal. xvii. 15. It is a vain imagination in
any to think that heaven can be a place of happiness to him,
in whose eye the beauty of holiness, which fills and adorns it,
is an unlovely thing; or that any can have a satisfaction in
that Divine purity which is loathsome to him in the imitation
of it. We cannot enjoy him, unless we resemble him; nor
take any pleasure in him if we were with him, without some-
thing of likeness to him.

Holiness fits us for communion with God.

We can have no evidence of our election and adoption with-
out it. Conformity to God in purity, is the fruit of electing
love: he has chosen us that we should be holy, Eph. i. 4.
The goodness of the fruit evidences the nature of the root: this
is the seal that assures us the patent is the authentic grant of
the prince. Whatsoever is holy, speaks itself to be from God;
and whosoever is holy, speaks himself to belong to God. This
is the only evidence that we are born of God, 1 John ii. 29.
The subduing our souls to him, the forming us into a resem-
blance to himself, is a more certain sign we belong to him,
than if we had with Isaiah seen his glory in the vision with all
his train of angels about him. This justifies us to be the seed of
God, when he has as it were taken a slip from his own purity,
and engrafted it in our spirits: he can never own us for his
children without his mark, the stamp of holiness. The devil's
stamp is none of God's badge. Our spiritual extraction from
him is but pretended, unless we do things worthy of so illus-
trious a birth, and becoming the honour of so great a Father.
What evidence can we else have of any child-like love to God,
since the proper act of love is to imitate the object of our affec-
tions?

And that we may be in some measure like to God in this
excellent perfection;

Let us be often viewing and ruminating on the holiness of
God, especially as discovered in Christ. It is by a believing
meditation on him, that we are changed into the same image,

2 Cor. iii. 18. We can think often of nothing that is excellent
in the world, but it draws our faculties to some kind of suitable
operation; and why should not such an excellent idea of the
holiness of God in Christ perfect our understandings, and
awaken all the powers of our souls to be formed to actions
worthy of him? A painter employed in the limning some ex-
cellent piece, has not only his pattern before his eyes, but his
eye frequently upon the pattern, to possess his fancy to draw

242 ON TfIE HOLINESS OF GOD.

forth an exact resemblance. He that would express the image
of God, must imprint upon his mind the purity of his nature,
and cherish it in his thoughts, that the excellent beauty of it
may pass from his understanding to his affections, and from his
affections to his practice. How can we arise to a conformity
to God in Christ, whose most holy nature we seldom glance
upon, and more rarely sink our souls into the depths of it by
meditation? Be frequent in the meditation of the holiness of
God.

Let us often exercise ourselves in acts of love to God, be-
cause of this perfection. The more adoring thoughts we have
of God, the more delightfully we shall aspire to, and more
ravishingly catch after any thing that may promote the more
full draught of his Divine image in our hearts. What we in-
tensely affect, we desire to be as near to as we can, and to be
that very thing rather than ourselves. All imitations of others
arise from an intense love to their persons or excellency.
When the soul is ravished with this perfection of God, it will
desire to be united with it; to have it drawn in it, more than
to have its own being continued to it. It will desire and de-
light in its own being, in order to this heavenly and spiritual
work. The impressions of the nature of God upon it, and the
imitations of the nature of God by it, will be more desirable
than any natural perfection whatsoever. The will in loving is
rendered like the object beloved ; is turned into its nature,1 and
imbibes its qualities. The soul by loving God, will find itself
more and more transformed into the Divine image, whereas
slighted ensamples are never thought worthy of imitation.

Let us make God our end. Every man's mind forms itself
to a likeness to that which it makes its chief end. An earthly
soul is as drossy as the earth he gapes for: an ambitious soul
is as elevated as the honour he reaches at. The same charac-
ters that are upon the thing aimed at, will be imprinted upon
the spirit of him that aims at it. When God and his glory are
made our end, we shall find a silent likeness pass in upon us;
the beauty of God will by degrees enter upon our souls.

In every deliberate action, let us reflect upon the Divine
purity as a pattern. Let us examine whether any thing we
are prompted unto bear an impression of God upon it; whe-
ther it looks like a thing that God himself would do in that
case, were he in our natures and in our circumstances. See
whether it has the livery of God upon it, how congruous it. is
to his nature ; whether, and in what manner, the holiness of
God can be glorified thereby; and let ns be industrious in all
this : for can such an imitation be easy which is resisted by the
constant assaults of the flesh, which is discouraged by our own
' Amor naturam induit et mores imbibit rei amata?.

ON THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 243

ignorance, and depressed by our faint and languishing desires
after it? 0! happy we, if there were such a heart in us.

[4.] If holiness be a perfection belonging to the nature of
God, then, where there is some weak conformity to the holi-
ness of God, let us labour to grow up in it, and breathe after
fuller measures of it. The more likeness we have to him, the
more love we shall have from him. Communion will be suit-
able to our imitation; his love to himself in his essence, will
cast out beams of love to himself in his image. If God loves
holiness in a lower measure, much more will he love it in a
higher degree, because then his image is more illustrious and
beautiful, and comes nearer to the lively lineaments of his own
infinite purity. Perfection in any thing is more lovely and
amiable than imperfection in any state ; and the nearer any
thing arrives to perfection, the further are those things sepa-
rated from it which might cool an affection to it. An increase
in holiness is attended with a manifestation of his love: " He
that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that
loveth me; and he — shall be loved of my Father, and I will love
him, and will manifest myself to him," John xiv. 21. It is a
testimony of love to God, and God will not be behind hand
with the creature in kindness: he loves a holy man for some
resemblance to him in his nature; but when there is an abound-
ing in sanctified dispositions suitable to it, there is an increase
of favour: the more we resemble the original, the more shall
we enjoy the blessedness of that original. As any partake
more of the Divine likeness, they partake more of the Divine
happiness.

[5.] Let us carry ourselves holily in a spiritual manner in all
our religious approaches to God; "Holiness becometh thine
house, 0 Lord, for ever," Psal. xciii. 5. This attribute should
work in us a deep and reverential respect to God. This is the
reason rendered why we should worship at his footstool, in the
lowest posture of humility prostrate before him, because he is
holy, Psal. xcix. 5. Shoes must be put off from our feet, Exod.
iii. 5, that is, lusts from our affections, every thing that our souls
are clogged and bemired with, as the shoe is with dirt. He is
not willing we should offer to him an impure soul, mired hearts,
rotten carcasses, putrified in vice, rotten in iniquity; our ser-
vices are to be as free from profaneness as the sacrifices of the
law were to be free from sickliness or any blemish. Whatsoever
is contrary to his purity is abhorred by him, and unlovely in
his sight, and can meet with no other success at his hands, but
a disdainful turning away both of his eye and ear, Isa. i. 15.
Since he is an immense purity, he will reject from his presence,
and from having any communion with him, all that which is
not conformable to him, as light chases away the darkness of

244 0N THE HOLINESS OF GOD.

the night, and will not mix with it. If we stretch out our
hands towards him, we must put iniquity far away from us,
Job xi. 13, 14; the fruits of all service will else drop off' to no-
thing. ".Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be
pleasant unto the Lord:" when? when the heart is purged by
Christ sitting as a purifier of silver, Mai. iii. 3, 4. Not all the
incense of the Indies yield him so sweet a savour, as one spirit-
ual act of worship from a heart estranged from the vileness of
the world, and ravished with an affection to, and a desire of
imitating the purity of his nature.

[6.] Let us address for holiness to God the fountain of it.
As he is the author of bodily life in the creature, so he is the
author of his own life, the life of God in the soul. By his
holiness he makes.,men holy, as the sun by his light enlightens
the air. He is not only the Holy One, but our Holy One, Isa.
xliii. 15; the Lord that sanctifies us, Lev. xx. 8. As he has
mercy to pardon us, so he has holiness to purify us, the excel-
lency of being a sun to comfort us, and a shield to protect us,
giving grace and glory, Psal. lxxxiv. 11. Grace whereby we
may have communion with him to our comfort, and strength
against our spiritual enemies for our defence, grace as our pre-
paratory to glory, and grace growing up till it ripen in glory.
He only can mould us into a Divine frame. The great Original
only can derive the excellency of his own nature to us. We
are too low, too lame to lift up ourselves to it; too much in
love with our own deformity, to admit of this beauty without
a heavenly power inclining our desires for it, our affections to
it, our willingness to be partakers of it. He can as soon set
the beauty of holiness in a deformed heart, as the beauty of
harmony in a confused mass when he made the world. He
can as soon cause the light of purity to rise out of the darkness
of corruption, as frame glorious spirits out of the insufficiency
of nothing. His beauty does not decay; he has as much in
himself now as he had in his eternity. He is as ready to im-
part it as he was at the creation; only we must wait upon him
for it, and be content to have it by small measures and degrees.
There is no fear of our sanctification, if we come to him as a
God of holiness, since he is a God of peace, and the breach
made by Adam is repaired by Christ. " And the very God of
peace sanctify you wholly," &c. 1 Thess. v. 23. He restores
the sanctifying Spirit which was withdrawn by the fall, as he
is a God pacified and his holiness righted by the Redeemer.
The beauty of it appears in its smiles upon a man in Christ,
and is as ready to impart itself to the reconciled creature, as
before justice was to punish the rebellious one. He loves to
send forth the streams of this perfection into created channels,
more than any else. He did not design the making the crea-

ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 245

ture so powerful as he might, because power is not such an
excellency in its own nature, but as it is conducted and man-
aged by some other excellency. Power is indifferent, and may
be used well or ill according as the possessor of it is righteous
or unrighteous. God makes not the creature so powerful as
he might, but he delights to make the creature that waits upon
him as holy as it can be, beginning it in this world, and ripen-
ing it in the other: it is from him we must expect it, and from
him that we must beg it, and draw arguments from the holi-
ness of his nature to move him to work holiness in our spirits.
We cannot have a stronger plea. Purity is the favourite of his
own nature, and delights itself in the resemblances of it in the
creature. Let us also go to God, to preserve what he has alrea-
dy wrought and imparted. As we cannot attain it, so we can-
not maintain it without him. God gave it Adam, and he lost
it: when God gives it us, we shall lose it without his influenc-
ing and preserving grace. The channel will be without a
stream, if the fountain do not bubble it forth; and the streams
will vanish, if the fountain do not constantly supply them. Let
us apply ourselves to him for holiness, as he is a God " glorious
in holiness." By this we honour God, and advantage ourselves.

DISCOURSE XII.

ON THE GOODNESS OP GOD.

Mark x. 18. — And Jesus said unto him, why callest thou me good ? there is none
good but one, that is, God.

The words are part of a reply of our Saviour to the young
man's petition to him. A certain person came in haste, run-
ning, as being eager for satisfaction, to entreat his directions,
what he should do to inherit everlasting life. The person is
described only in general, ver. 17. "There came one," a cer-
tain man: but Luke describes him by his dignity, Luke xviii.
IS. " A certain ruler;"- one of authority among the Jews. He
desires of him an answer to a legal question, " what he should
do !" -.Or, as Matthew has it, "What good thing shall I do,
that I may have eternal life," Matt. xix. 16. He imagined
everlasting felicity was to be purchased by the works of the
law; he had not the least sentiment of faith. Christ's answer
implies, there was no hope of the happiness of another world
by the- works of the law, unless they were perfect and an-
swerable to every Divine precept. He does not seem to have
any ill or hypocritical intent in his address to Christ; not to
Vol. II.— 32

246 ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD.

tempt him, but to be instructed by him. He seems to come
with an ardent desire to be satisfied in his demand; he per-
formed a solemn act of respect to him, he kneeled to him,
yowrtiniaac;, prostrated himself upon the ground. Besides,
Christ is said to love him, ver. 21, which had been inconsistent
with the knowledge Christ had of the hearts and thoughts of
men, and the abhorrence he had of hypocrites, had he been
only a counterfeit in this question.

But the first reply Christ makes to him, respects the title of
Good Master, which this ruler gave him in his salutation.

Some think, that Christ hereby would draw him to an ac-
knowledgment of him as God; you acknowledge me good.
How come you to salute me with so great a title, since you
do not afford it to your greatest doctors?" Lightfoot on this
place observes, that the title of Rabbi bone is not in all the
Talmud. You must own me to be God, since you own me to
be good; goodness being a title only due and properly belong-
ing to the Supreme Being.

If you take me for a common man, with what conscience
can you salute me in a manner proper to God ? Since no man
is good, no, not one, but the heart of man is evil continually.
The Arians used this place to back their denying the Deity of
Christ; because, say they, he did not acknowledge himself
good, therefore he did not acknowledge himself God. But
he does not here deny his Deity, but reproves him for calling
him good, when he had not yet confessed him to be more
than a man.1 You behold my flesh, but you consider not
the fulness of my Deity;2 if you account me good, account me
God, and imagine me not to be a simple and a mere man.
He disowns not his own Deity, but allures the young man to a
confession of it. Why callest thou me good, since thou dost
not discover any apprehensions of my being more than a man?
Though thou comest with a greater esteem to me, than is com-
monly entertained of the doctors of the chair, why dost thou
own me to be good, unless thou own me to be God ? If Christ
had denied himself in this speech to be good, he had rather en-
tertained this person with a frown and a sharp reproof for
giving him a title due to God alone, than have received him
with that courtesy and complaisance as he did.3 Had he said,
There is none good but the Father, he had excluded himself;
but in saying, There is none good but God, he comprehends
himself.

Others say, that Christ had no intention to draw him to an
acknowledgment of his Deity, but only asserts his Divine au-
thority or mission from God. For which interpretation Mal-
donat calls Calvin an arianizer. 4 He does not here assert the

i Erasni. in loc. 2 Auffustin. 3 Ilcnsius in Matth. 4 Calvin in loc.

ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 247

essence of his Deity, but the authority of his doctrine: as if he
should have said, You do without ground give me the title of
good, unless you believe I have a Divine commission for what
I declare and act. Many think me an impostor, an enemy of
God, and a friend to devils; you must firmly believe, that I am
not so as your rulers report me, but that I am sent of God, and
authorized by him; you cannot else give me the title of good,
but of wicked. And the reason they give for this interpreta-
tion, is, because it is a question, whether any of the apostles
understood him at this time to be God: which seems to have
no great strength in it; since not only the devil had publicly
owned him to be "the Holy one of God," Luke iv. 34; but
John the Baptist had borne record, that he was " the Son of
God," John i. 34; and before this time Peter had confessed him
openly, in the hearing of the rest of the disciples, that he was
"the Christ, the Son of the living God," Matt. xvi. 16. But I
think Paraeus's interpretation is best, which takes in both those;
Either you are serious or deceitful in this address; if you are
serious, why do you call me good, and make bold to fix so
great a title upon one you have no higher thoughts of than of
a mere man? Christ takes occasion from hence, to assert God
to be only and sovereignly good ; There is none good but God.1
God only has the honour of absolute goodness, and none but
God merits the name of good. A heathen could say much
after the same manner. All other things are far from the na-
ture of good;2 call none else good but God, for this would be a
profane error: other things are only good in opinion, but have
not the true substance of goodness. He is good in a more ex-
cellent way than any creature can be denominated good.

God only is originally good, good of himself. All created
goodness is a rivulet from this Fountain, but Divine goodness '
has no spring; God depends upon no other for his goodness, he
has it in and of himself: man has no goodness from himself,
God has no goodness from without himself; his goodness is no
more derived from another than his being. If he were good by
any external thing, that thing must be in being before him, or
after him; if before him he was not then himself from eternity;
if after him, he was not good in himself from eternity. The
end of his creating things then, was not to confer a goodness
upon his creatures, but to partake of a goodness from his crea-
tures. God is good b/ and in himself, since all things are only
good by him; and all that goodness which is in creatures, is but
the breathing of his own goodness upon them. They have all
their loveliness from the same hand they have their being from.
Though by creation God was declared good, yet he was not
made good by any, or by all the creatures. He partakes of

1 Trismegist. 2 Eugubin. de Peren. Pliilos. lib. 5. cap. 9.

248 0N THE GOODNESS OF GOD.

none, bnt all things partake of him. He is so good that he
gives all and receives nothing: "Only good," because nothing
is good but by him, nothing has a goodness but from him.

And God only is infinitely good.

A boundless goodness that knows no limits, a goodness as
infinite as his essence; not only good, but best; not only good,
but goodness itself, the supreme, inconceivable goodness. All
things else are but little particles of God, small sparks from
this immense flame, sips of goodness from this Fountain.
Nothing that is good by his influence, can equal him, who is
good by himself: derived goodness can never equal primitive
goodness. Divine goodness communicates itself to a vast num-
ber of creatures in various degrees; to angels, glorified spirits,
men on earth, to every creature ; and when it has communi-
cated all that the present world is capable of, there is still less
displayed, than left to enrich another world. All possible crea-
tures are not capable of exhausting the wealth, the treasures,
that Divine bounty is filled with.

And God only is perfectly good, because only infinitely good.

He is good without indigence, because he has the whole na-
ture of goodness, not only some beams that may admit of in-
crease of degree. As in him is the whole nature of entity, so in
him is the whole nature of excellency. As nothing has an abso-
lute perfect being but God, so nothing has an absolutely perfect
goodness but God; as the sun has a perfection of heat in it, but
what is warmed by the sun is but imperfectly hot, and equals
not the sun in that perfection of heat wherewith it is naturally
endued. The goodness of God is the measure and rule of good-
ness in every thing else.

Lastly, God only is immutably good.

Other things may be perpetually good by supernatural power,
but not immutably good in their own nature. Other things are
not so good, but they may be bad; God is so good that he can-
not be bad. It was the speech of a philosopher, that it was a
hard thing to find a good man, yea, impossible ; but though it
were possible to find a good man, he would be good but for
some moment, or a short time: for though he should be good
at this instant, it was above the nature of man to continue in a
habit of goodness, without going awry and warping.1 But the
goodness of God endureth for ever, Psal. lii. 1. God always
glitters in goodness, as the sun, which the heathens called the
visible image of the Divinity, does with light. There is not
such a perpetual light in the sun, as there is a fulness of good-
ness in God; no variableness in him, as he is the Father of
lights, James i. 17.

Before I come to the doctrine that is the chief scope of the

1 Eugubin. Percn. Plulos. lib. 5. cap. 9. p. 97. col. 1.

ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD.

249

words, some remarks may be made upon the young man's
question and carriage, " What must I do to inherit eternal
life?"

The opinion of gaining eternal life by the outward observa-
tion of the law, will appear very unsatisfactory to an inquisi-
tive conscience. This ruler affirmed, and certainly did confi-
dently believe, that he had fulfilled the law; "All these have I
observed from my youth," ver. 20; yet he had not any full
satisfaction in his own conscience; his heart misgave, and start-
ed upon some sentiments in him, that something else was re-
quired, and what he had done might be too weak, too short to
shoot heaven's lock for him. And to that purpose he comes to
Christ, to receive instructions for the piecing up whatsoever
was defective. Whosoever will consider the nature of God,
and the relation of a creature, cannot with reason think, that
eternal life was of itself due from God as a recompense to
Adam, had he persisted in a state of innocence. Who can think
so great a reward due, for having performed that, which a crea-
ture in that relation was obliged to do? Can any man think
another obliged to convey an inheritance of 1000/. per annum
upon his payment of a few farthings, unless any compact ap-
pears to support such a conceit? And if it were not to be ex-
pected in the integrity of nature, but only from the goodness of
God, how can it be expected since the revolt of man and the
universal deluge of natural corruption ? God owes nothing to
the holiest creature; what he gives is a present from his boun-
ty, not the reward of the creature's merit. And the apostle de-
fies all creatures from the greatest to the least, from the tallest
angel to the lowest shrub, to bring out any one creature that
has first given to God; "Who hath first given to him, and it
shall be recompensed unto him again?" Rom. xi. 35. The
duty of the creature and God's gift of eternal life are not a bar-
gain and sale.

God gives to the creature; he does not properly repay, for he
that repays has received something of an equal value and worth
before. When God crowns angels and men, he bestows upon
them purely what is his own, not what is theirs by merit and
natural obligation: though indeed what God gives by virtue of
a promise made before, is upon the performance of the condi-
tion due by gracious obligation. God was not indebted to man
in innocence, but every man's conscience may now remind
him, that he is not upon the same level as in the state of integ-
rity; and that he cannot expect any thing from God as the
salary of his merit, but the free gift of Divine liberality. Man
is obliged to the practice of what is good, both from the excel-
lency of the Divine precepts, and the duty he owes to God, and
cannot, without some declaration from God, hope for any

250 oN THE GOODNESS OF GOD.

other reward, than the satisfaction of having well acquitted
himself.1

It is the disease of human nature since its corruption, to hope
for eternal life by the tenor of the covenant of works.

Though this ruler's conscience was not thoroughly satisfied
with what lie had done, but imagined he might for all that fall
short of eternal life, yet he still hugs the imagination of obtain-
ing it by doing; " What shall I do that I may inherit eternal
life?" ver. 17. This is natural to corrupted man: Cain thought
to be accepted for the sake of his sacrifice ; and when he found
his mistake, he was so weary of seeking happiness by doing,
that he would court misery by murdering. All men set too
.. high a value upon their own services: sinful creatures would
fain make God a debtor to them, and be purchasers of felicity;
they would not have it conveyed to them by God's sovereign
bounty, but by an obligation of justice upon the value of their
works. The heathens thought God would treat men according
to the merit of their services; and it is no wonder they should
have this sentiment, when the Jews, educated by God in a
wiser school, were wedded to that notion. The pharisees were
highly fond of it, it was the only argument they used in prayer
for Divine blessing. You have one of them boasting of his
frequency in fasting, and his exactness in paying his tithes,
Luke xviii. 12; as if God had been beholden to him, and could
not without manifest wrong deny him his demand. And Paul
confesses it to be his own sentiment before his conversion, he
accounted this righteousness of the law gain to him, Phil. iii.
7; he thought by this to make his market with God. The
whole nation of the Jews affected it,2 compassing sea and land
to make out a righteousness of their own, as the pharisees did
to make proselytes.

The papists follow their steps, and dispute for justification
by the merit of works, and find out another key of works of
supererogation, to unlock heaven's gate, than what ever the
Scripture informed us of. It is from hence, also, that men are
so ready to make faith, as a work, the cause of our justification.
Man foolishly thinks he has enough to set up himself after he
has proved bankrupt, and lost all his estate. This imagination
is born with us, and the best Christians may find some sparks
of it in themselves, when there are springings up of joy in
their hearts, upon the more close performance of one duty than
of another, as if they had wiped off their scores, and given God
a satisfaction for their former neglects. " We have forsaken
all and followed thee," was the boast of his disciples; "what
shall we have therefore?" was a branch of this root, Matt. xix.

1 Arayrant. Moral.

2 " Going- about to establish their own righteousness," Rom. x. 3.

ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 251

27. Eternal life is a gift not by an obligation of right, but an
abundance of goodness; it is owing not to the dignity of our
works, but the magnificent bounty of the Divine nature, and
must be sued for by the title of God's promise, not by the title
of the creature's services. We may observe,

How insufficient are some assents to Divine truth, and some
expressions of affection to Christ, without the practice of Chris-
tian precepts. This man addressed Christ with a profound
respect, acknowledging him more than an ordinary person, with
a more reverential carriage than we read any of his disciples
paid to him in the days of his flesh: he fell down at his feet,
kissed his knees, as the custom was, when they would testify
the great respect they had to any eminent person, especially to
their rabbins. All this some think to be included in the word
yovvfitttiaas.1 He seems to acknowledge him the Messiah by
giving him the title of good, a title they did not give to their
doctors of the chair: he breathes out his opinion, that he was
able to instruct him beyond the ability of the law : he came
with a more than ordinary affection to him, and expectation of
advantage from him, evident by his departing sad, when his
expectations were frustrated by his own perversity; it was a
sign he had a high esteem of him, from whom he could not
part without marks of his grief. What was the cause of his
refusing the instructions he pretended such an affection to re-
ceive? He had possessions in the world. How soon do a few
drops of worldly advantages quench the first sparks of an ill-
grounded love to Christ! How vain is a complimental and
cringing devotion, without a supreme preference of God, and
valuation of Christ above every outward allurement ! We
may observe this also,

We should never admit any thing to be ascribed to us which
is proper to God. "Why callest thou me good? There is
none good but one, that is God." If you do not acknowledge
me God, ascribe not to me the title of good. It takes off all
those titles which fawning flatterers give to men ; mighty, in-
vincible, to princes; holiness, to the pope. We call one an-
other good, without considering how evil; and wise, without
considering how foolish ; mighty, without considering how
weak; and knowing, without considering how ignorant. No
man but has more of wickedness than goodness, of ignorance
than knowledge, of weakness than strength. God is a jealous
God of his own honour, he will not have the creature share
with him in his royal titles. It is a part of idolatry to give men
the titles which are due to God ; a kind of a worship of the
creature together with the Creator. Worms will not stand out,
but assault Herod in his purple, when he usurps the preroga-
1 Ver. 17. Lightfoot in loc.

252 ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD.

tive of God ; and prove stiff and invincible vindicators of their
Creator's honour, when summoned to arms by the Creator's
word, Acts xii. 22.

The observation which I intend to prosecute is this:

Doctrine. Pure and perfect goodness is the royal preroga-
tive of God only: goodness is a choice perfection of the Divine
nature.

This is the true and genuine character of God; he is good,
he is goodness, good in himself, good in his essence, good in the
highest degree, possessing whatsoever is comely, excellent, de-
sirable; the highest good, because the first good; whatsoever is
perfect goodness, is God; whatsoever is truly goodness in any
creature, is a resemblance of God.1 All the names of God are
comprehended in this one of good. All gifts, all variety of
goodness, are contained in him as one common good. He is
the efficient cause of all good, by an overflowing goodness of
his nature; he refers all things to himself as the end, for the
representation of his own goodness; "Truly God is good,"
Psal. lxxiii. 1. Certainly, it is an undoubted truth, it is writ-
ten in his works of nature and his acts of grace; He is abun-
dant in goodness, Exod. xxxiv. 6.

And every thing is a memorial, not of some few sparks, but
of his greater goodness, Psal. cxlv. 7. This is often celebrated
in the psalms, and men invited more than once, to sing forth
the praises of it, Psal. cvii. 8. 15. 21. 31. It may better be ad-
mired than sufficiently spoken of, or thought of, as it merits.
It is discovered in all his works, as the goodness of a tree in all
its fruits; it is easy to be seen, and more pleasant to be contem-
plated. In general,

All nations in the world have acknowledged God good;
*o 'AyaOov was one of the names the Platonists expressed him
by, and good and God are almost the same words in our lan-
guage. All as readily consented in the notion of his goodness,
as in that of his Deity. Whatsoever divisions or disputes
there were among them on the other perfections of God, they
all agreed in this without dispute, says Synesius.2 One calls
him Venus, in regard of his loveliness. 3 Another calls him
'EpwT'a, Love, as being the band which ties all things together.
No perfection of the Divine nature is more eminently nor more
speedily visible in the whole book of the creation than this.
His greatness shines not in any part of it. where his goodness
does not as gloriously glisten. Whatsoever is the instrument
of his work, as his power; whatsoever is the orderer of his
work, as his wisdom; yet nothing can be adored as the motive
of his work, but the goodness of his nature. This only could
induce him to resolve to create: his wisdom then steps in, to

' Flcin. in Dionys. de Divin. Nom. cap. 511. 2 Empedocles. 3Hesiod.

ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 253

dispose the methods of what he resolved; and his power fol-
lows to execute what his wisdom has disposed and his good-
ness designed. His power in making, and his wisdom in or-
dering, are subservient to his goodness ; and this goodness
which is the end of the creation, is as visible to the eyes of
men, as legible to the understanding of men, as his power in
forming them, and his wisdom in tuning them. And as the
book of creation, so the records of his government, must needs
acquaint them with a great part of it, when they have often
beheld him stretching out his hand, to supply the indigent, re-
lieve the oppressed, and punish the oppressors, and give them
in their distresses what might fill their hearts with food and
gladness. It is this the apostle means by his Godhead, which
he links with his eternity and power, as clearly seen in the
things that are made, as in a pure glass: "For the invisible
things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen,
being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal
power and Godhead," Rom. i. 20. The Godhead, which com-
prehends the whole nature of God as discoverable to his crea-
tures, was not known, yea, was impossible to be known by the
works of creation. There had been nothing then reserved to
be manifested in Christ. But his goodness, which is properly
meant there by his Godhead, was as clearly visible as his
power. The apostle upbraids them with their unthankfulness,
and argues their inexcusableness, because the arm of his power
in creation made no due impressions of fear upon their spirits,
nor the beams of his goodness wrought in them sufficient sen-
timents of gratitude. Their not glorifying God was a contempt
of the former, and their not being thankful was a slight of the
latter. God is the object of honour, as he is powerful, and the
object of thankfulness properly, as he is bountiful.

All the idolatry of the heathen is a clear testimony of their
common sentiment of the goodness of God ; since the more emi-
nently useful any person was in some advantageous invention
for the benefit of mankind, they thought he merited a rank in
the number of their deities. The Italians esteemed Pythagoras
a god, because he was ^txavSpurcitato;.1 To be good and use-
ful, was an approximation to the Divine nature: hence it was,
that when the Lystrians saw a resemblance of the Divine good-
ness in the charitable and miraculous cure of one of their crip-
pled citizens, presently they mistook Paul and Barnabas for
gods, and inferred from thence their right to Divine worship,
inquiring into nothing else but the visible character of their
goodness and usefulness, to capacitate them for the honour of
a sacrifice, Acts xiv. 8 — 11. Hence it was that they adored
those creatures that were a common benefit, as the sun and
1 Jamblich. vit. Pythag. lib 1. col. 6. p. 43.
Vol. II.— 33

254 0N TIIE GOODNESS OF GOD.

moon, which must be founded upon a pre-existent notion not
only of the being, but of the bounty and goodness of God,
which was naturally implanted in them, and legible in all God's
works. And the more beneficial any thing was to them, and
the more sensible advantages they received from it, the higher
station they gave it in the rank of their idols, and bestowed
upon it a more solemn worship; an absurd mistake to think
every thing that was sensibly good to them, to be God, clothing
himself in such a form, to be adored by them. And upon this
account the Egyptians worshipped God under the figure of an
ox, and the East Indians in some part of their country deify a
heifer, intimating the goodness of God as their nourisher and
preserver, in giving them corn, whereof the ox is an instrument
in serving for ploughing and preparing the ground.

The notion of goodness is inseparable from the notion of a
God.

We cannot own the existence of God, but we must confess,
also, the goodness of his nature. Hence the apostle gives to
his goodness the title of his Godhead, as if goodness and God-
head were convertible terms, Rom. i. 20. As it is indissolubly
linked with the being of a Deity, so it cannot be severed from
the notion of it: we as soon undeify him by denying him good,
as by denying him great: Optimus, Maximus, the Best, Great-
est, was the name whereby the Romans entitled him. His
nature is as good as it is majestic; so does the Psalmist join
them: " I will declare thy greatness: they shall abundantly
utter the memory of thy great goodness," Psal. cxlv. 6, 7.
They considered his goodness before his greatness, in putting
Optimus before Maximus: greatness without sweetness, is an
unruly and affrighting monster in the world; like avast turbu-
lent sea, always casting out mire and dirt. Goodness is the
brightness and loveliness of our majestic Creator. To fancy a
God without it, is to fancy a miserable, scanty, narrow-hearted,
savage God, and so an unlovely and horrible being: for he
is not a God that is not good, he is not a God that is not the
highest good. Infinite goodness is more necessary to and more
straitly joined with an infinite Deity, than infinite power and
infinite wisdom: we cannot conceive him God, unless we con-
ceive him the highest good, having nothing superior to himself
in goodness, as he has nothing superior to himself in excellency
and perfection. No man can possibly form the notion of that
God in his mind, and yet form a notion of something better than
God; for whoever thinks any thing better than God, fancies a
God with some defect. By how much the better he thinks that
thing to be, by so much the more imperfect he makes God in
his thoughts. This notion of the goodness of God was so natu-
ral, that some philosophers and others, being startled at the evil

ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 255

they saw in the world, fancied besides a good God, an evil
principle, the author of all punishments in the world. This
was ridiculous; for those two must be of equal power, or one
inferior to the other; if equal, the good could do nothing, but
the evil one would restrain him; and the evil one could do
nothing, but the good one would contradict him: so they would
be always contending and never conquering. If one were
inferior to the other, then there would be nothing but what that
superior ordered : good, if the good one were superior, and no-
thing but evil, if the bad one were superior. In the prosecution
of this let us see —

What this goodness is. — Some propositions concerning the
nature of it. — That God is good. — The manifestation of it in
creation, providence, and redemption. — The use.

1. What this goodness is?

There is a goodness of being, which is the natural perfection
of a thing: there is the goodness of will, which is the holiness
and righteousness of a person: there is the goodness of the
hand, which we call liberality, or beneficence, a doing good to
others.

(1.) We mean not by this the goodness of his essence, or the
perfection of his nature. God is thus good, because his nature
is infinitely perfect, he has all things requisite to the completing
of a most perfect and sovereign Being. All good meets in his
essence, as all water meets in the ocean. Under this notion all
the attributes of God, which are requisite to so illustrious a
Being, are comprehended. All things that are, have a good-
ness of being in them, derived to them by the power of God,
as they are creatures; so the devil is good, as he is a creature
of God's making; he has a natural goodness, but not a moral
goodness; when he fell from God, he retained his natural good-
ness as a creature; because he did not cease to be, he was not
reduced to that nothing from whence he was drawn, but he
ceased to be morally good, being stripped of his righteousness
by his apostasy: as a creature, he was God's work, as a crea-
ture he remains still God's work, and therefore as a creature
remains still good, in regard of his created being. The more
of being any thing has, the more of this sort of natural good-
ness it has: and so the devil has more of this natural goodness
than men have; because he has more marks of the excellency
of God upon him, in regard of the greatness of his knowledge,
and the extent of his power, the largeness of his capacity, and
the acuteness of his understanding, which are natural perfec-
tions belonging to the nature of an angel, though he has lost
his moral perfections. God is sovereignly and infinitely good
in this sort of goodness. He is unsearchably perfect, Job xi. 7;
nothing is wanting to his essence that is necessary to the per-

256 0N THE GOODNESS OF GOD.

fection of it; yet this is not that which the Scripture expresses
under the term of goodness, but a perfection of God's nature
as related to us, and which he pours forth upon all his crea-
tures, as goodness which flows from this natural perfection of
the Deity.

(2.) Nor is it the same with the blessedness of God, but
something flowing from his blessedness. Were he not first in-
finitely blessed; and full in himself, he could not be infinitely
good and diffusive to us; had he not an infinite abundance in
his own nature, he could not be overflowing to his creatures.

Had not the sun a fulness of light in itself, and the sea a vast-
ness of water, the one could not enrich the world with its beams,
nor the other fill every creek with its waters.

(3.) Nor is it the same with the holiness of God. The holi-
ness of God is the rectitude of his nature, whereby he is pure,
and without spot in himself. The goodness of God is the efflux
of his will, whereby he is beneficial to his creatures. The holi-
ness of God is manifest in his rational creatures; but the good-
ness of God extends to all the works- of his hands. His holiness
beams most in his law, his goodness reaches to every thing that
had a being from him. " The Lord is good to all," Psal. cxlv.
9. And though he be said in the same Psalm, verse 17, to be
"holy in all his works," it is to be understood of his bounty,
bountiful in all his works; the Hebrew word signifying both
holy and liberal, and the margin of the Bible reads it merciful
or bountiful.

(4.) Nor is this goodness of God the same with the mercy of
God. Goodness extends to more objects than mercy: goodness
stretches itself out to all the works of his hands; mercy ex-
tends only to a miserable object; for it is joined with a senti-
ment of pity, occasioned by the calamity of another. The
mercy of God is exercised about those that merit punishment;
the goodness of God is exercised upon objects that have not
merited any thing contrary to the acts of his bounty. Creation
is an act of goodness, not of mercy; providence in governing
some part of the world, is an act of goodness, not of mercy.'
The heavens; says Austin, need the goodness of God to govern
them, but not;the mercy of God to relieve them; the earth is
full of the misery of man, and the compassions of God; but
the heavens need not the mercy of God to pity them, because
they are not miserable; though they need the goodness and
power of God to sustain them, because as creatures they are
impotent without him. God's goodness extends to the angels,
that, kept their standing, and to man in innocence, who in that
state stood not in need of mercy. Goodness and mercy are
distinct, though mercy be a branch of goodness; there may be

' Lombard, lib. 4. distinct. 46. p. 286.

ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 257

a manifestation of goodness, though none of mercy. Some
think Christ had been incarnate, had not man ^fallen; had it
been so, there had been a manifestation of goodness to our na-
ture, but not of mercy, because sin had not made our natures
miserable. The devils are monuments of God's creating good-
ness, but not of his pardoning compassions. The grace of God
respects the rational creature, mercy the miserable creature,
goodness all his creatures, brutes, and the senseless plants, as
well as reasonable man.

(5.) By goodness is meant the bounty of God. This is the
notion of goodness in the world ; when we say a good man, we
mean either a holy man in his life, or a charitable and liberal
man in the management of his goods. A righteous man and
a good man are distinguished, Rom. v. 7. " For scarcely for a
righteous man will one die; yet perad venture for a good man
some would even dare to die." For an innocent man, one as
innocent of the crime as himself would scarce venture his life;
but for a good man, a liberal, tender-hearted man, that had
been a common good in the place where he lived, or had done
another as great a benefit as life itself amounts to, a man out of
gratitude might dare to die. The goodness of God is his incli-
nation to deal well and bountifully with his creatures.1 It is
that whereby he wills there should be something besides him-
self for his own glory. God is good in himself, and to himself,
that is, highly amiable to himself; and therefore some define
it a perfection of God, whereby he loves himself and his own
excellency; but as it stands in relation to his creatures, it is
that perfection of God whereby he delights in his works, and
is beneficial to them. God is the highest goodness, because he
does not act for his own profit, but for his creatures' welfare,
and the manifestation of his own goodness; he sends out his
beams, without receiving any addition to himself, or substantial
advantage from his creatures. It is from this perfection that
he loves whatsoever is good, and that is, whatsoever he has
made, " P'or every creature of God is good," 1 Tim. iv. 4;
every creature has some communications from him, which can-
not be without some affection to them; every creature has a
footstep of Divine goodness upon it ; God therefore loves that
goodness in the creature, else he would not love himself. God
hates no creature, no not the devils, and damned, as creatures;
he is not an enemy to them, as they are the works of his hands:2
he is properly an enemy that does simply and absolutely wish
evil to another; but God does not absolutely wish evil to the
damned; that justice that he inflicts upon them, the deserved
punishment of their sin, is part of his goodness (as shall after-
wards be shown.)

1 Coccci. Sum. p. 50. 2 Cajetan in secund secundn?, qu. 34. ar. 3.

258 ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD.

This is the most pleasant perfection of the Divine nature:
his creating power amazes ns; his conducting wisdom asto-
nishes us; his goodness, as furnishing us with all conveniences,
delights us, and renders both his amazing power and astonish-
ing wisdom delightful to us.

The sun, by effecting things, is an emblem of God's power,
by discovering things to us, is an emblem of his wisdom, but
by refreshing and comforting us, is an emblem of his goodness;
and without this refreshing virtue it communicates to us, we
should take no pleasure in the creatures it produces, nor in the
beauties it discovers. As God is great and powerful, he is the
object of our understanding; but as good and bountiful, he is
the object of our love and desire.

(6.) The goodness of God comprehends all his attributes.
All the acts of God are nothing else but the effluxes of his good-
ness, distinguished by several names, according to the objects
it is exercised about; as the sea, though it be one mass of
water, yet we distinguish it by several names, according to the
shores it washes and beats upon, as the British and German
ocean, though all be one sea. When Moses longed to see his
glory, God tells him he would give him a prospect of his good-
ness; "I will make all my goodness to pass before thee,"
Exod. xxxiii. 19. His goodness is his glory and Godhead, as
much as is delightfully visible to his creatures, and whereby
he does benefit man; I will cause my goodness, or comeliness,
as Calvin renders it, to pass before thee; what is this, but the
train of all his lovely perfections springing from his goodness;
the whole catalogue of mercy, grace, long-suffering, abundance
of truth, summed up in this one word, Exod. xxxiv. 6. All are
streams from this fountain; he could be none of this, were he
not first good. When it confers happiness without merit, it is
grace; when it bestows happiness against merit, it is mercy;
when he bears with provoking rebels, it is long-suffering; when
he performs his promise, it is truth; when it meets with a per-
son to whom it is not obliged, it is grace; when he meets with
a person in the world, to which he has obliged himself by pro-
mise, it is truth;1 when it commiserates a distressed person, it
is pity; when it supplies an indigent person, it is bounty; when
it succours an innocent person, it is righteousness; and when it
pardons a penitent person, it is mercy; all summed up in this
one name of goodness. And the psalmist expresses the same
sentiment in the same words: " They shall abundantly utter
the memory of thy great goodness, and shall sing of thy righte-
ousness. The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow
to anger, and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all: and
his tender mercies are over all his works," Psal. cxlv. 7 — 9.

1 Herle upon Wisdom, cap. 5. p. 41, 42.

ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 259

He is first good, and then compassionate. Righteousness is
often in Scripture taken, not for justice, but charitableness.
This attribute, says one,1 is so full of God, that it does deify
all the rest, and verify the adorableness of him. His wisdom
might contrive against us, his power bear too hard upon us;
one might be too hard for an ignorant, and the other too mighty
for an impotent creature; his holiness would scare an impure
and guilty creature; but his goodness conducts them all for us,
and makes them all amiable to us; whatever comeliness they
have in the eye of a creature, whatever comfort they afford to
the heart of a creature, we are obliged for all to his goodness.
This puts all the rest upon a delightful exercise, this makes his
wisdom design for us, and this makes his power to act for us:
this veils his holiness from affrighting us, and this spirits his
mercy to relieve us: all his acts towards man are but the work-
manship of this.2 What moved him at first to create the world
out of nothing, and erect so noble a creature as man, endowed
with such excellent gifts; was it not his goodness? What made
him separate his Son to be a sacrifice for us, after we had en-
deavoured to raze out the first marks of his favour; was it not
a strong bubbling of goodness? What moves him to reduce a
fallen creature to the due sense of his duty, and at last bring
him to an eternal felicity; is it not merely his goodness? This
is the captain attribute that leads the rest to act. This attends
them, and spirits them in all his ways of acting. This is the
complement and perfection of all his works; had it not been for
this, which set all the rest on work, nothing of his wonders
had been seen in creation, nothing of his compassions had been
seen in redemption.

2. The second thing is — some propositions to explain the
nature of this goodness.

(1.) He is good by his own essence. God is not only good
in his essence, but good by his essence; the essence of every
created thing is good, so the unerring God pronounced every
thing which he had made, Gen. i. 31. The essence of the
worst creatures, yea, of the impure and savage devils, is good,
but they are not good jjer esse.ntiam, for then they could not
be bad, malicious, and oppressive. God is good as he is God,
and therefore good by himself, and from himself, not by parti-
cipation from another; he made every thing good, but none
made him good. Since his goodness was not received from
another, he is good by his own nature. He could not receive
it from the things he created, they are later than he : since they
received all from him, they could bestow nothing on him ; and
no God preceded him, in whose inheritance and treasures of

1 Ingelo Bcntivolio, ct Uran, book 4. p. 260, 261.
" DailJe Mclang. part 2. p. 704, 705.

2(jQ ON THE GOODNESS OE OOD.

goodness he could be a successor : he is absolutely his own
goodness, he needed none to make him good; but all things
needed him, to be good by him. Creatures are good by being
made so by him, and cleaving to him : he is good without
cleaving to any goodness without him: goodness is not a qua-
lity in him, but a nature, ' not a habit added to his essence, but
his essence itself; he is not first God, and then afterwards good,
but he is good as he is God; his essence being one and the
same, is formally and equally God and good. AirdyaSov, good
of himself, was one of the names the Platonists gave him. He
is essentially good in his own nature, and not by any outward
action which follows his essence. He is an independent Being,
and has nothing of goodness or happiness from any thing with-
out him, or any thing he does act about. If he were not good
by his essence, he could not be eternally good, he could not be
the first good, he would have something before him, from
whence he derived that goodness wherewith he is possessed.
Nor could he be perfectly good, for he could not be equally
good to that from whom he derived his goodness: no star, no
splendid body that derives light from the sun, does equal that
sun by which it is enlightened.

Hence his goodness must be infinite, and circumscribed by
no limits. The exercise of his goodness may be limited by
himself, but his goodness, the principle, cannot. For since his
essence is infinite, and his goodness is not distinguished from
his essence, it is infinite also; if it were limited, it were finite:
he cannot be bounded by any thing without him; if so, then
he were not God, because he would have something superior
to him, to put bars in his way: if there were any thing to fix
him, it must be a good or evil being; good it cannot be, for it
is the property of goodness to encourage goodness, not to bound
it; evil it cannot be, for then it would extinguish goodness, as
well as limit it ; it would not be content with the circumscrib-
ing it, without destroying it; for it is the nature of every con-
trary, to endeavour the destruction of its opposite. He is
essentially good by his own essence, therefore good of himself,
therefore eternally good, and therefore abundantly good.

(2.) God is the prime and chief goodness. Being good per
se, and by his own essence, he must needs be the chief good-
ness, in whom there can be nothing but good, from whom
there can proceed nothing but good, to whom all good what-
soever must be referred as the final cause of all good. As he
is the chief being, so he is the chief good. And as we rise by
steps from the existence of created things, to acknowledge one
supreme Being, which is God, so we mount by steps from the
consideration of the goodness of created things, to acknowledge

1 Ficini Epist. lib. 11. epist. 30.

ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 261

one infinite ocean of sovereign goodness, whence the streams
of created goodness are derived. When we behold things that
partake of goodness from another, we must acquiesce in one
that has goodness by participation from no other, but originally
from himself, and therefore supremely in himself above all
other things. So that as nothing greater and more majestic
can be imagined, so also nothing better and more excellent can
be conceived than God. Nothing can add to him, or make
him better than he is, nothing can detract from him, to make
him worse; nothing can be added to him, nothing can be
severed from him; no created good can render him more ex-
cellent, no evil from any creature can render him less excellent.
Our goodness extends not to him, Psal. xvi. 2. Wickedness
may hurt a man, as we are, and our righteousness may profit
the son of man; but if we be righteous, what give we to him,
or what receives he at our hands? Job xxxv. 7, S. As he has
no superior in place above him, so being chief of all, he cannot
be made better by any inferior to him. How can he be made
better by any, that has from himself all that he has? The
goodness of a creature may be changed, but the goodness of
the Creator is immutable; he is always like himself, so good
that he cannot be evil, as he is so blessed that he cannot be
miserable.

Nothing is good but God, because nothing is of itself but
God: as all things, being from nothing, are nothing in compa-
rison of God, so all things being from nothing, are scanty and
evil in comparison of God. If any thing had been ex Deo,
God being the matter of it, it had been as good as God is; but
since the principle whence all things were drawn was nothing,
though the efficient cause by which they were extracted from
nothing was God, they are as nothing in goodness, and not
estimable in comparison of God. " Whom have I in heaven
but thee," &c. Psal. lxxiii. 25. God is all good; every creature
has a distinct variety of goodness. God distinctly pronounced
every day's work in the creation good. Food communicates
the goodness of its nourishing virtue to our bodies, flowers the
goodness of their odours to our smell, every creature a good-
ness of comeliness to our sight, plants the goodness of healing
qualities for our cure. And all derive from themselves a good-
ness of knowledge, objectively to our understandings. The
sun by one sort of goodness warms us, metals enrich us, living
creatures sustain us, and delight us by another; all those have
distinct kinds of goodness, which are eminently summed up in
God, and are all but parts of his immense goodness. It is he
that enlightens us by his sun, nourishes us by bread. It is not
by bread alone that we live, but by the word of God, Matt. iv.
4. It is all but his own supreme goodness, conveyed to us
Vol. II.— 34

262 ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD.

through those varieties of conduit-pipes. " God is all'good;"
other things are good in their kind, as a good man, a good an-
gel, a good tree, a good plant; but God has a good of all kinds
eminently in his nature. He is no less all good, than he is
almighty, and all-knowing: as the sun contains in it all the
light, and more light than is in all the clearest bodies in the
world; so does God contain in himself all the good, and more
good than is in the richest creatures. Nothing is good, but as
it resembles him; as nothing is hot, but as it resembles fire, the
prime subject of heat.

God is omnipotent, therefore no good can be wanting to him.
If he were destitute of any which he could not have, he were
not almighty. He is so good that there is no mixture of any
thing which can be called not good in him; every thing besides
him wants some good, which others have. Nothing can be so
evil as God is good. There can be no evil, but there is some
mixture of good with it. No nature so evil, but there is some
spark of goodness in it; but God is a good which has no taint
of evil: nothing can be so supreme an evil, as God is supreme
goodness.

He only is good without capacity of increase: he is all good,
and unmixedly good; none good but God. A goodness like
the sun, that has all light, and no darkness. That is the second
thing, He is the supreme and chief goodness.

(3.) This goodness is communicative. None so communi-
catively good as God. As the notion of God includes good-
ness, so the notion of goodness includes diffusiveness; without
goodness he would cease to be a Deity, and without diffusive-
ness he would cease to be good. The being good is necessary
to the being God. For goodness is nothing else in the notion
of it, but a strong inclination to do good; either to find or
make an object wherein to exercise itself, according to the pro-
pension of its own nature; and it is an inclination of commu-
nicating itself, not for its own interest, but for the good of the
object it pitches upon. Thus God is good by nature, and his
nature is not without activity, he acts conveniently to his own
nature. " Thou art good, and dost good," Psal. cxix. 68. And
nothing accrues to him, by the communications of himself to
others, since his blessedness was as great before the frame of
any creature, as ever it was since the erecting of the world; so
that the goodness of Christ himself increases not the lustre of
his happiness: "My goodness extendeth not to thee," Psal.
xvi. 2. He is not of a niggardly and envious nature; he is
too rich to have any cause to envy, and too good to have any
will to envy: he is as liberal as he is rich, according to the
capacity of the object about which his goodness is exercised.
The Divine goodness being the supreme goodness, is goodness

ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 263

in the highest degree of activity ; not an idle, enclosed, pent up
goodness, as a spring shut up, or a fountain sealed, bubbling
up within itself, but bubbling out of itself; a fountain of gar-
dens to water every part of his creation. He is an ointment
poured forth, Cant. i. 3. Nothing spreads itself more than oil,
and takes up a larger space wheresoever it drops. It may be
no less said of the goodness of God, as it is of the fulness of
Christ, he fills all in all, Eph. i. 23. He fills rational creatures
with understanding, sensitive nature with vigour and motion,
the whole world with beauty and sweetness. Every taste,
every touch of a creature is a taste and touch of Divine good-
ness. Divine goodness offers itself in one spark in this crea-
ture, in another spark in another creature, and altogether makes
up a goodness inconceivable by any creature. The whole
mass and extracted spirit of it is infinitely short of the goodness
of the Divine nature, imperfect shadows of that goodness which
is in himself.

Indeed, the more excellent any thing is, the more nobly it
acts. How remotely does light, that excellent brightness of
the creation, disperse itself! How does that glorious creature,
which God has set in the heavens, spread its wings over hea-
ven and earth, roll itself about the world, cast its beams
upward and downward, insinuate into all corners, pierce the
depths, and shoot up its rays into the heights, encircle the
higher and lower creatures in its arms, reach out its communi-
cations to influence every thing under the earth, as well as
dart its beams of light and heat on things above, or upon the
earth. Nothing is hid from it,Psal. xix. 6; not from its power,
nor from its sweetness. How communicative also is water, a
necessary and excellent creature! How active is it in a river,
to nourish the living creatures engendered in its womb! It re-
freshes every shore it runs by, promotes the propagation of
fruits for the nourishment, and bestows a verdure upon the
ground for the delight of man; and where it cannot reach the
higher ground in its substance, it does by its vapours, mounted
up, and concocted by the sun, and gently distilled upon the
earth, for the opening its womb to bring forth its fruits. God
is more prone to communicate himself, than the sun to spread
its wings, or the earth to mount up its fruits, or the water to
multiply living creatures.1 Goodness is his nature. Hence
were there internal communications of himself from eternity;
diffusions of himself without himself in time, in the creation of
the world, like a full vessel running over. He created the
world that he might impart his goodness to something without
him, and diffuse larger measures of his goodness, after he had
laid the first foundation of it in its being. And therefore he

i Tom. 2. p. 926.

254 0N TI1E GOODNESS OF GOD.

created several sorts of creatures, that they might be capable
of various and distinct measures of his liberality, according to
the distinct capacities of their nature; but imparted most to the
rational creature, because that only is capable of an under-
standing to know him, and will to embrace him. He is the
highest goodness, and therefore a communicative goodness, and
acts excellently according to his nature.

(4.) God is necessarily good. None is necessarily good but
God; he is as necessarily good as he is necessarily God. His
goodness is as inseparable from his nature as his holiness. He
is good by nature, not only by will ; as he is holy by nature,
not only by will: he is good in his nature, and good in his ac-
tions; and as he cannot be bad in his nature, so he cannot be
bad in his communications; he can no more act contrary to this
goodness in any of his actions, than he can nn-God himself. It
is not necessary that God should create a world ; he was at his
own choice whether he would create or no; but when he re-
solves to make a world, it is necessary that he should make it
good, because he is goodness itself, and cannot act against his
own nature. He could not create any thing without goodness
in the very act; the very act of creation, or communicating
being to any thing without himself, is in itself an act of good-
ness, as well as an act of power; had he not been good in him-
self, nothing could have been endued with any goodness by
him. In the act of giving being he is liberal, the being he be-
stows is a displaying his own liberality; he could not confer
what he needs not, and which could not be deserved, without
being bountiful. Since what was nothing could not merit to
be brought into being, the very act of giving to nothing a being
was an act of choice goodness.

He could not create any thing without goodness as the mo-
tive, and the necessary motive. His goodness could not neces-
sitate him to make the world, but his goodness could alone
move him to resolve to make a world; he was not bound to
erect and fashion it because of his goodness, but he could not
frame it without his goodness as the moving cause.

He could not create any thing, but he must create it good.
It had been inconsistent with the supreme goodness of his na-
ture, to have created only murderous, ravenous, injurious crea-
tures; to have created a bedlam rather than a world. A mere
heap of confusion would have been as inconsistent with his
Divine goodness, as with his Divine wisdom.

Again, when his goodness had moved him to make a crea-
ture, his goodness would necessarily move him to be bene-
ficial to his creature; not that this necessity results from any
merit in the creature which he had framed; but from the ex-
cellency and diffusiveness of his own nature, and his own

ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD.

265

glory, the end for which he formed it, which would have been
obscure, yea, nothing, without some degrees of his bounty.
What occasion of acknowledgments and praise could the crea-
ture have for its being, if God had given him only a miserable
being, while it was innocent in action? The goodness of God
would not suffer him to make a creature, without providing
conveniences for it so long as he thought good to maintain its
being, and furnishing it with that which was necessary to an-
swer that end for which he created it. And his own nature
would not surfer him to be unkind to his rational creature,
while it was innocent. It had been injustice to inflict evil upon
the creature, that had not offended, and had no relation to an
offending creature; the nature of God could not have brought
forth such an act. And therefore some say, that God, after he
had created man, could not presently annihilate him, and take
away his life and being.1 As a Sovereign he might do it, as
almighty he was able to do it, as well as create him; but in
regard of his goodness, he could not morally do it. For had he
annihilated man as soon as ever he had made him, he had not
made man for himself, and for his own glory ; to be loved,
worshipped, sought, and acknowledged by him: he would not
then have been the end of man; he had created him in vain,
and the world in vain, which he assures us he did not, Isa. xlv.
IS, 19. And certainly, if the gifts of God be without repent-
ance, man could not have been annihilated after his creation
without repentance in God, without any cause, or had not sin
entered into the world. If God did not say to man, after sin
had made its entrance into the world, " Seek ye me in vain;"
he could not, because of his goodness, have said so to man in his
innocence. As God is necessarily mind, so he is necessarily
will; as he is necessarily knowing, so he is necessarily loving.
He could not be blessed, if he did not know himself, and his
own perfection ; nor good, if he did not delight in himself, and
his own perfections. And this goodness whereby he delights
in himself, is the source of his delight in his creatures, wherein
he sees the footsteps of himself. If he loves himself, he cannot
but love the resemblance of himself, and the image of his own
goodness. He loves himself, because he is the highest good-
ness and excellency, and loves every thing as it resembles him-
self, because it is an efflux of his own goodness: and as he
does necessarily love himself, and his own excellency, so he
does necessarily love any thing that resembles that excellency,
which is the primary object of his esteem. But,

(5.) Though he be necessarily good, yet he is also freely
good. The necessity of the goodness of his nature hinders not
the liberty of his actions; the matter of his acting is not at all

1 Coccei. Sum. Theolog. p. 91.

266 uN THE GOODNESS OF GOD.

necessary, but the manner of his acting in a good and bountiful
way, is necessary, as well as free. He created the world and
man freely, because he might choose whether he would create
it;1 but he created them good necessarily, because he was first
necessarily good in his nature, before he was freely a Creator.
When he created man, he freely gave him a positive law, but
necessarily a wise and righteous law, because he was necessa-
rily wise and righteous before he was freely a Lawgiver.
When he makes a promise, he freely lets the word go out of
his lips; but when he has made it, he is necessarily a faithful
performer, because he was necessarily true and righteous in his
nature before he was freely a promiser. God is necessarily
good in his nature, but free in his communications of it. To
make him necessarily to communicate his goodness in the first
creation of the creature, would render him but impotent, good
without liberty and without will. If the communications of it
be not free, the eternity of the world must necessarily be con-
cluded, which some anciently asserted from the naturalness of
God's goodness, making the world flow from God as light from
the sun.

God indeed is necessarily good affective in regard of his na-
ture; but freely good effective, in regard of the effluxes of it to
this or that particular subject he pitches on. He is not neces-
sarily communicative of his goodness, as the sun of his light, or
a tree of its cooling shade, that chooses not its objects, but en-
lightens all indifferently, without any variation or distinction:
this were to make God of no more understanding than the sun,
to shine not where it pleases, but where it must. He is an
understanding agent, and has a sovereign right to choose his
own subjects. It would not be a supreme goodness, if it were
not a voluntary goodness. It is agreeable to the nature of the
highest good, to be absolutely free, to dispense his goodness in
what methods and measures he pleases, according to the free
determinations of his own will, guided by the wisdom of his
mind, and regulated by the holiness of his nature. He is not to
give an account of any of his matters, Job xxxiii. 13. He will
have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and he will have
compassion on whom he will have compassion, Rom. ix. 15.
And he will be good to whom he will be good: when he does
act, he cannot but act well, so it is necessary; yet he may act
this good, or that good to this or that degree, so it is free. As
it is the perfection of his nature, it is necessary; as it is the
communication of his bounty, it is voluntary. The eye cannot
but see if it be open, yet it may glance upon this or that colour,
fix upon this or that object, as it is conducted by the will. God
necessarily loves himself, because he is good, yet not by con-

1 Gilbert dc Dei. Domini, p. 6.

ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 267

straint, but freedom; because his affection to himself is from a
knowledge of himself: he necessarily loves his own image, be-
cause it is his image, yet freely, because not blindly, but from
motions of understanding and will. What necessity could there
be upon him, to resolve to communicate his goodness ? It could
not be to make himself better by it; for he had a goodness in-
capable of any addition: he confers a goodness on his creatures,
but reaps not a harvest of goodness to his own essence from his
creatures. What obligation could there be from the creature, to
confer a goodness on him to this or that degree, for this or that
duration ? If he had not created a man, nor angel, he had done
them no wrong. If he had given them only a simple being, he
had manifested a part of his goodness, without giving them a
right to challenge anymore of him. If he had taken away their
beings after a time when he had answered his end, he had done
them no injury: for what law obliged him to enrich them, and
leave them in that being wherein he had invested them, but his
sole goodness? Whatever sparks of goodness any creature has,
are the free effusions of God's bounty, the offspring of his-own
inclination to do well, the simple favour of the donor ; not pur-
chased, not merited by the creature. God is as unconstrained
in his liberty in all his communications, as infinite in his good-
ness, the fountain of them.

(6.) This goodness is communicative with the greatest plea-
sure. Moses desired to see his glory; God assures him he
should see his goodness, Exod. xxxiii. IS, 19; intimating that
his goodness is his glory, and his glory his delight also. He
sends not forth his blessings with an ill will; he does not. stay
till they are squeezed from him; he prevents men with his
blessings of goodness, Psal. xxi. 3; he is most delighted when
he is most diffusive, and his pleasure in bestowing is larger
than his creatures' in possessing: he is not covetous of his own
treasures; he lays up his goodness in order to laying it out with
a complacency wholly Divine. The jealousy princes have of
their subjects, makes them sparing of their gifts, for fear of giv-
ing them materials for rebellion. God's foresight of the ill use
men would make of his benefits, damped him not in bestowing
his largesses. He is incapable of envy: his own happiness can
no more be diminished, than it can be increased. None can
overtop him in goodness, because nothing has any good but
what is derived from him; his gifts are without repentance:
sorrow has no footing in him, who is infinitely happy, as well
as infinitely good. Goodness and envy are inconsistent. How
unjustly then did the devil accuse God ! What God gives out
of goodness, he gives with joy and gladness. He did not only
will that we should be, but rejoice that he had brought us into
being. He rejoiced in his works, Psal. civ. 31. And his wis-

258 ON THE GOODNESS OF COD.

dom stood by him, delighting in the habitable parts of the earth,
Prov. viii. 31. He beheld the world after its creation with a
complacency, and still governs it with the same pleasure where-
with he reviewed it. Infinite cheerfulness attends infinite good-
ness. He would not give, if he had not a pleasure that others
should enjoy his goodness; since he is better than any thing,
and more communicative than any thing: he is more joyful in
giving out, than the sun can be to run its race in pouring forth
light. He is said only to repent and grieve, when men answer
not the obligations and ends of his goodness; which would be
their own felicity as well as his glory. Though he does not
force greater degrees of goodness upon those that neglect it, yet
he denies them not to those that solicit him for it. It is always
greater pleasure to him to impart upon the importunities of the
creatures, than it is to a mother to reach out her breast to her
crying and longing infant. He is not wearied by the solicita-
tions of men, he is pleased with their prayers; because he is
pleased with the imparting of his own goodness. He seems to
be in travail with it, longing to be delivered of it in the lap of
his creature. He is as much delighted with petitions for his
liberality in bestowing his best goodness, as princes are weary
of the craving of their subjects. None can be so desirous to
oppress those that are under them, as God is delighted to en-
large his hand towards them. It is the nature of his goodness
to be glad of men's solicitations for it: because they are signifi-
cant valuations of it, and therefore fit occasions for him to be-
stow it. Since he does not delight in the unhappiness of any of
his creatures, he certainly delights in what may conduce unto
their felicity. He does with the same delight multiply the effects
of his goodness, where his wisdom sees it convenient, as he be-
held the first fruits of his goodness with a complacency, upon
the laying the top-stone of the creation.

(7.) The displaying of this goodness was the motive and end
of all his works of creation and providence.1 God being infi-
nitely wise, could not act without the highest reason, and for
the highest end: the «reason that induced him to create, must
be of as great an eminency as himself; the motive could not
be taken from without him, because there was nothing but
himself in being. It must be taken therefore from within him-
self, and from some one of those most excellent perfections
whereby we conceive him. But upon the exact consideration
of all of them, none can seem to challenge that honour of being
the motive of them, to resolve the setting forth any work but
his own goodness. This being the first thing manifest in his
creation, seems to be the first thing moving him to a resolution
to create: wisdom may be considered as directing; power con-
i Afflyral. Moral, torn. l.p. 9fin.

ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 269

sidered as acting; but it is natural to reflect upon goodness as
moving the one to direct, the other to act. Power was the
principle of his action, wisdom the rule of his action, goodness
the motive of his action: principle and rule are awakened by
the motive, and subservient to the end. That which is the
most amiable perfection in the Divine nature, and that which
he first took notice of as the footsteps of them in the distinct
view of every day's work, and the general view of the whole
frame, seems to claim the best right to be entitled the motive
and end of his creation of things.

God could have no end but himself, because there was no-
thing besides himself. Again, the end of every agent is that
which he esteems good, and the best good for that kind of
action. Since nothing is to be esteemed good but God, nothing
can be the ultimate end of God but himself and his own good-
ness: what a man wills chiefly, is his end; but God cannot
will any other thing but himself as his end, because there is
nothing superior to himself in goodness. He cannot will any
thing, but what supremely serves himself and his own goodness
as his end: for if he did, that which he wills, must be superior
to himself in goodness, and then he is not God; or inferior to
them in goodness, and then he would not be righteous, in wil-
ling that which is a lower good before a higher. God cannot
will any thing as his end of acting but himself, without undei-
fying himself. God's will being infinitely good, cannot move
for any thing but what is infinitely good; and therefore what-
soever God made, he made for himself, Pro v. xvi. 4; that
whatsoever he made might bear a badge of this perfection upon
it, and be a discovery of his wonderful goodness; for the
making things for himself does not signify any indigence in
God, that he made any thing to increase his excellency, (for
that is capable of no addition,) but to manifest his excellency.
God possessing every thing eminently in himself, did not create
the world for any need he had of it; finite things were unable
to make any accession to that which is infinite. Man, indeed,
builds a house to be a shelter to him against wind and weather,
and makes clothes to secure him from cold, and plants gardens
for his recreation and health. God is above all those little
helps: he did not make the world for himself in such a kind,
but for himself, that is, the manifestation of himself, and the
riches of his nature; not to make himself blessed, but to dis-
cover his own blessedness to his creatures, and communicate
something of it to them. He did not garnish the world with
so much bounty, that he might live more happily than he did
before; but that his rational creatures might have fit conve-
niences. As the end for which God demands the peformance
of our duty, is not for his own advantage, but for our good.
Vol. II.— 35

270 ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD.

Deut. x. 13; so the end why he conferred upon us the excellency
of such a being, was for our good, and for the discovery of his
goodness to us. For had not God created the world, he had
been wholly unknown to any but himself; he produced crea-
tures that he might be known: as the sun shines not only to
discover other things, but to be seen itself in its beauty and
brightness. God would create things, because he would be
known in his glory and liberality; hence is it that he created
intellectual creatures, because without them the rest of the cre-
ation would not be taken notice of. It had been in some sort in
vain; for no nature lower than an understanding nature, was
able to know the marks of God in the creation, and acknow-
ledge him as God. In this regard, God is good above all crea-
tures, because he intends only to communicate his goodness in
creation, not to acquire any goodness or excellency from them,
as men do in their framing of things. God is all, and is desti-
tute of nothing, and therefore nothing accrues to him by the
creation, but the acknowledgment of his goodness. This good-
ness therefore must be the motive and end of all his works.

3. The third thing is — That God is good.

The more excellent any thing is in nature, the more of good-
ness and kindness it has. For we see more of love and kind-
ness in creatures that are endued with sense, to their descend-
ants, than in plants that have only a principle of growth.
Plants preserve their seeds whole that are enclosed in them :
animals look to their young only after they are dropped from
them; yet after some time take no more notice of them than
of a stranger that never had any birth from them: but man,
that has a higher principle of reason, cherishes his offspring,
and gives them marks of his goodness while he lives, and
leaves not the world at the time of his death without some tes-
timonies of it: much more must God, who is a higher princi-
ple than sense or reason, be good and bountiful to all his off-
spring. The more perfect any thing is, the more it does com-
municate itself. The sun is more excellent than the stars, and
therefore does more sensibly, more extensively, disperse its
liberal beams than the stars do. And the better any man is,
the more charitable he is. God being the most excellent nature,
having nothing more excellent than himself, because nothing
more ancient than himself, who is the Ancient of days; there
is nothing therefore better and more bountiful than himself.

He is the cause of all created goodness, he must therefore
himself be the supreme good. What good is in the heavens, is
the product of some being above the earth; and those varieties
of goodness in the earth, and several creatures, are somewhere
in their fulness and union. That therefore which possesses all
those scattered goodnesses in their fulness, must be all good.

ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 271

must possess all that good which is displayed in creatures;
therefore sovereignly best. Whatsoever natural or moral good-
ness there is in the world, in angels, or men, or inferior crea-
tures, is a line drawn from that Centre, the bubblings of that
Fountain. God cannot but be better than all, since the good-
ness that is in creatures is the fruit of his own. If he were
not good, he could produce no good; he could not bestow what
he had not. If the creature be good, as the apostle says every
creature is, 1 Tim. iv. 4, he must needs be better than all, be-
cause they have nothing but what is derived to them from him;
and much more goodness than all, because finite beings are not
capable of receiving into them, and containing in themselves
all that goodness which is in an infinite Being: when we search
for good in creatures, they come short of that satisfaction which
is in God, Psal. iv. 6. As the certainty of a first principle of
all things, is necessarily concluded from the being of creatures,
and the upholding and sustaining power and virtue of God, are
concluded from the mutability of those things in the world;
whence we infer, that there must be some stable foundation of
those tottering things, some firm hinge upon which those
changeable things do move, without which there would be no
stability in the kinds'of things, no order, no agreement, or union
among them: so from the goodness of every thing, and their
usefulness to us, we must conclude him good, who made all
those things. And since we find distinct goodnesses in the
creature, we must conclude that one principle whence they
did flow, excels in the glory of goodness: all those little glim-
merings of goodness which are scattered in the creatures, as the
image in the glass, represent the face, posture, motion, of him
whose image it is, but not in the fulness of life and spirit, as
in the original. It is but a shadow at the best, and speaks
something more excellent in the copy. As God has an infinite-
ness of being above them, so he has a supremacy of goodness
beyond them: what they have is but a participation from him:
what he has, must be infinitely supereminent above them. If
any thing be good by itself, it must be infinitely good, it would
set itself no bounds; we must make as many gods as particu-
lars of goodness in the world: but being good by the bounty of
another, that from whence they flow must be the chief good-
ness. It is God's excellency and goodness, which like a beam
pierceth all things: he decks spirits with reason, endues matter
with form, furnishes every thing with useful qualities.'

As one beam of the sun illustrates fire, water, earth; so one
beam of God enlightens and endows minds, souls, and univer-
sal nature: nothing in the world had its goodness from itself,

1 Ficinus in Com. Amor. Orat. 2. cap. p. 1326.

272 ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD.

any more than it had its being from itself. The cause must be
richer than the effect.

But that which I intend, is the defence of this goodness.

(1.) The goodness of God is not impaired by suffering sin to
enter into the world, and man to fall thereby. It is rather a
testimony of God's goodness, that he gave man an ability to be
happy, than any charge against his goodness, that he settled
man in a capacity to be evil. God was first a benefactor to
man, before man could be a rebel against God. May it not be
inquired, whether it had not been against the wisdom of God,
to have made a rational creature with liberty, and not suffer
him to act according to the nature he was endowed with, and
to follow his own choice for some time? Had it been wisdom
to frame a free creature, and totally to restrain that creature
from following its liberty? Had it been goodness, as it were,
to force the creature to be happy against its will? God's good-
ness furnished Adam with a power to stand; was it contrary
to his goodness, to leave Adam to a free use of that power?
To make a creature, and not let that creature act according to
the freedom of his nature, might have been thought to have
been a blot upon his wisdom, and a constraint upon the crea-
ture, not to make use of that freedom of his nature which the
Divine goodness had bestowed upon him. To what purpose
did God make a law to govern his rational creature, and yet
resolve that creature should not have his choice, whether he
would obey it or no? Had he been really constrained to ob-
serve it, his observation of it could no more have been called
obedience, than the acts of brutes, that have a kind of natural
constraint upon them by the instinct of their nature, can be
called obedience: in vain had God endowed a creature with so
great and noble a principle as liberty. Had it been goodness
in God after he had made a reasonable creature, to govern him
in the same manner as he did brutes, by a necessary instinct?
It was the goodness of God to the nature of men and angels,
to leave them in such a condition, to be able to give him a
voluntary obedience, a nobler offering than the whole creation
could present him with; and shall this goodness be undervalued
and accounted mean, because man made an ill use of it, and
turned it into wantonness? As the unbelief of man does not
diminish the redeeming grace of God, Rom. iii. 3, so neither
does the fall of man lessen the creating goodness of God. Be-
sides, why should the permission of sin be thought more a
blemish to his goodness, than the providing a way of redemp-
tion for the destroying the works of sin and the devil, be judged
the glory of it, whereby he discovered a goodness of grace that
surpassed the bounds of nature? If this were a thing that
might seem to obscure or deface the goodness of God, in the

ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD. 273

permission of the fall of angels and Adam, it was in order to
bring forth a greater goodness, in a more illustrious pomp, to
the view of the world: " God hath concluded them all in un-
belief, that he might have mercy upon all," Rom. xi. 32. But
if nothing could be alleged for the defence of his goodness in
this, it were most comely for an ignorant creature, not to im-
peach his goodness, but adore him in his proceedings, in the
same language the apostle does, verse 33: " 0 the depth of the
riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How un-
searchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!"

(2.) Nor is his goodness prejudiced, by not making all things
the equal subjects of it.

[1.] It is true all things are not subjects of an equal good-
ness. The goodness of God is not so illustriously manifested
in one thing as another. In the creation he has dropped good-
ness upon some, in giving them beings and sense; and poured
it upon others, in endowing them with understanding and rea-
son. The sun is full of light, but it has a want of sense;
brutes excel in the vigour of sense, but they are destitute of
the light of reason; man has a mind and reason conferred on
him, but he has neither the acuteness of mind, nor the quick-
ness of motion equal with an angel. In providence also he
does give abundance and opens his hand to some, to others he
is more sparing; he gives greater gifts of knowledge to some,
while he lets others remain in ignorance; he strikes down
some, and raises others; he afflicts some with a continual pain,
while he blesses others with an uninterrupted health; he has
chosen one nation wherein to set up his gospel sun, and leaves
another benighted in their own ignorance. Known was God
in Judea, they were a peculiar people alone of all the nations
of the earth, Deut. xiv. 2. He was not equally good to the
angels: he held forth his hand to support some in their happy
habitation, while he suffered others to sink in irreparable ruin:
and he is not so diffusive here of his goodness to his own, as
he will be in heaven. Here their sun is sometimes clouded,
but there all clouds and shades will be blown away, and melt-
ed into nothing: instead of drops here, there will be above,
rivers of life. Is any creature destitute of the open marks of
his goodness, though all are not enriched with those signal
characters which he vouchsafes to others? He that is unerring
pronounced every thing good distinctly in its production, and
the whole good in its universal perfection, Gen. i. 4. 10. 12. IS.
21. 25. 31. Though he made not all things equally good, yet
he made nothing evil; and though one creature, in regard of
its nature, may be better than another, yet an inferior creature,
in regard of its usefulness in the order of the creation, may be
better than a superior. The earth has a goodness in bringing

274 ON THE GOODNESS OF (JOD.

forth fruits, and the waters in the sea a goodness in multiplying
food. That any of us have a being, is goodness; that we have
not so healthful a being as others, is unequal, but not unjust
goodness. He is good to all, though not in the same degree.
The whole earth is full of his mercy, Psal. cxix. 64. A good
man is good to his cattle, to his servants; he makes a provision
for all; but he bestows not those floods of bounty upon them,
that he does upon his children. As there are various gifts, but
one Spirit, 1 Cor. xii. 4; so there are various distributions, but
from one goodness: the drops, as well as the fuller streams,
are of the same fountain, and relish of the nature of it; and
though he do not make all men partake of the riches of his
grace after the corruption of their nature, is his goodness dis-
graced hereby? or does he merit the title of cruelty? Will any
diminish the goodness of a father, for his not setting up his
son, after he has foolishly and wilfully proved bankrupt; or
not rather admire his liberality in giving him so large a stock
to trade>with, when he first set him up in the world?

[2.] The goodness of God to creatures, is to be measured by
their distinct usefulness to the common end. It were better
for a toad or serpent to be a man, that is, better for the crea-
ture itself, if it were advanced to a higher degree of being, but
not better for the universe. He could have made every pebble
a living creature, and every living creature a rational one: but
that he made every thing as we see, it was a goodness to the
creature itself; but that he did not make it of a higher eleva-
tion in nature, was a part of his goodness to the rational crea-
ture. If all were rational creatures, there would have been
wanting creatures of an inferior nature for their conveniency;
they would have wanted the manifestation of the variety and
fulness of his goodness. Had all things in the world been
rational creatures, much of that goodness which he has com-
municated to rational creatures would not have appeared.
How could man have showed his skill in taming and mana-
ging creatures more mighty than himself? What materials
would there have been to manifest, the goodness of God, be-
stowed upon the reasonable creatures for framing excellent
works and inventions? Much of the goodness of God had lain
wrapped up from sense and understanding. All other things
partake not of so great a goodness as man; yet they are so
subservient to that goodness poured forth on man, that little of
it could have been seen without them. Consider man, every
member in his body has a goodness in itself; but a greater
goodness as referred to the whole, without which the goodness
of the more noble part would not be manifested. The head is
the most excellent member, and has greater impressions of
Divine goodness upon it, in regard that it is the organ of under-

ON THE GOODNESS OF GOD.

275

standing: were every member of the body a head, what a
deformed monster would man be! If he were all head, where
would be feet for motion and arms for action ? Man would be
fit only for thought, and not for exercise. The goodness of
God in giving man so noble a part as the head, could not be
known without a tongue, whereby to express the conception
of his mind ; and without feet and hands, whereby to act much
of what he conceives and determines, and execute the resolves
of